


Drop and Cover

by ace_up_the_sleeve



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Gen Work, Where Was Clint Barton During Captain America 2?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-20 04:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 72,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2415476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ace_up_the_sleeve/pseuds/ace_up_the_sleeve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton wasn't sitting idly by when the Winter Soldier shattered the organization as they knew it. When a mission assigned to the assassin goes south as SHIELD crumbles around him, he's left to pick up the pieces as best he can. The task is considerably more difficult than he would have liked to imagine, what  with his resources and reliability all but blown out of existence. It wouldn't be his luck to just have to survive. No, he has a world to save along the way as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. FUBAR

Time, they say, is money.

Well, if that was so, then someone owed one Clint Barton a hell and a half sum of cash.

As it was, it was all the man could do to keep his eyes from drifting away from the icy excuse of a drop point stretched below his perch for the fiftieth time that minute. And no, it wasn't unprofessional to have to constantly snap them back into place. Rather, it was exactly the opposite. His training and instinct told him to scan the entire area around the charge he was covering. His orders told him otherwise.

Clint shifted his weight with an aggravated grunt as a rock dug uncomfortably in between his Kevlar and the waistband of his pants. The sudden movement disrupted his (not so) meticulous focus, and an involuntary shiver reached him even through the specialized, insulated coat he wore as his tightly wound nerves protested the sudden movement. Swirling grey streaks of storm clouds had begun to form overhead with a vigor within the last hour or so, and fat flakes of snow had already begun to fall throughout the frigid wasteland. Although they seemed few in number and drifted downwards at a distractingly slow pace, the ground had already become tinged with a frankly irritating pearlescent glow from the substance. A steady rainfall had fallen on their way in to the drop point, and the sheen of moisture that had managed to reach the ground before forming flakes was slowly beginning to glaze over with ice.

In short, Clint would have given both his thumbs and possibly his left foot to be anywhere but where he currently was stationed.

The earpiece that was serving as his radio crackled to life without warning just then, and a bored sounding "confirm status, over" echoed over the static. He fingered the comm unit begrudgingly with a thinly gloved hand for a second before puffing a sigh that visibly swirled in the freezing air.

When he had woken up earlier that morning, he certainly hadn't expected to be face down in rubble and snow waiting on a target ten excruciatingly long hours later.

To say he had been surprised when he had been called in to S.H.I.E.L.D by Fury himself was the understatement of the century. After the New York escapade, he had been considering himself lucky to even be keeping his job at the agency. He had been treading lightly, making it a point to avoid conversations when he could and throwing himself full force into the training rooms to work out his ever expanding list of anguished frustrations on the equipment. There wasn't a day that he could walk through the corridor without having venomous glares and nervous glances thrown his way from every which direction. Conversations halted abruptly when he passed by only to be replaced by hushed whispers.

Some were not so hushed.

Some made it blatantly obvious that he wasn't so welcome anymore. Not that he had been to begin with.

To be an assassin was one thing.

To be an assassin  _corrupted_  was an entire different story.

So when he got the gruff command to "get his ass down to base, pronto", he could do little more than obey. And obey, he did.

He had walked into Fury's office, straight backed and shoulders rigid, and shut the door on the mutters he had left in his wake in the hall. He had stood at attention by the entrance, eyes roving silently over the office of the director of S.H.I.E.L.D before settling on the man himself. The man in question looked exhausted and had yet to even glance up from the papers on his desk at the sound of the door. After a long moment of Clint wondering whether or not he should clear his throat (or nick an ashtray), Fury raised his head, his eye staring disapprovingly at the archer.

"Get out of the doorway, Barton. You look like you're waiting on a damn date or something."

At that, Clint relaxed slightly, the suggestion of a grin quirking the corners of his mouth as he stepped further into the room to stand before the massive desk. "Is that an invitation, sir?"

Fury snorted, the closest sound to a laugh that Clint had heard from the man in a significantly long time. "Always the comedian." The director had gestured at the stiff chair next to Clint and began talking before the archer had even sat down. "I'm sending you back out in the field."

Clint froze, halfway seated in his chair. He stared at Fury, eyes scanning his face for any sign of deception. Upon finding none, he slowly lowered himself the rest of the way to the chair.

"I thought you said  _I_ was the comedian, sir."

Fury rolled his eye at that, laying both his hands flat against his desk as he leaned forward with a burst of a sigh. Clint's eyes darted to the paperwork scattered across the desk involuntarily, picking up on the words 'winter' and 'Russians' repeatedly. His attention snapped back to Fury as the man started talking. "Look, I get it. Everyone gets it. You blame yourself for New York. A lot of New York, anyways. You were corrupted, and you killed a lot of good men. You don't want to trust yourself out there. You think you're useless to the agency. To me. To the Avengers."

The man paused, leaning back slightly and crossing his arms as Clint's jaw twitched on its own accord. He stared right back into Fury's calculating look, steeling himself for the lashing he figured would come about eventually.

"Well, I've got news for you, agent."

Here it came.

"You did jack. Shit. Nothing."

Clint blinked at that. Whatever he was preparing for to come next, that certainly wasn't it. It took a few seconds for his tongue to unstick from the roof of his mouth, and when it did, the best he could come up with was a befuddled "Sir?" Fury's eye might have softened from steel to stone, but he couldn't be sure as his director pressed on.

"I said it once, and I'll say it as many times as I need to get through that thick skull of yours. That wasn't you. That was a power-crazed lunatic of a god deciding to play keep away with the most dangerous weapon Earth has ever experienced. You just happened to get caught in the crossfire. You were  _used,_ Barton, and whether you like it or not, we've all done some damn deplorable things under someone else's orders. And now, I've honestly had just about enough of you moping around here. So wake up, agent, because today you're snapping out of this pity party and clipping your tie back on. You're reassigned to field work as of this moment. All bitching noted and ignored."

The only sound in the office was the steady drone of the helicarrier's engines for a few long moments. Neither man broke eye contact, and after a full minute ticked by on the clock on Fury's desk, Clint sat back with a puff, and ran a hand quickly through his buzzed hair. "What do you need me to do?"

Fury nodded brusquely, seemingly satisfied for the moment. Clint undoubtedly knew the didn't buy his easy acceptance for a moment, but it seemed to be enough to appease him for now. He only hoped there wouldn't be another conversation later.

Shuffling past the papers on his desk, Fury gripped a thin folder and tossed it across to the sniper. As Clint opened the dossier, the director began his debriefing.

"Doctor Curtis Holden, M.D. PhD in biological and genetic sciences out of the University of Oxford. Graduated top of the class back in the day and has anonymously donated his services and almost all of his research to just about every university across Europe."

Clint shot a glance up from his studying to eye his handler with a raised brow. "Anonymously."

Fury gave a halfhearted flap of his hand. "Any scientist of his caliber is flagged on our radar before they even buy their first pencil case. We've had eyes on him for a long time. And a good thing, too, because he's actually one of ours."

Clint quirked his eyebrow a little higher at that, looking up to regard Fury in full this time. "I've never even heard of him-" He was interrupted tersely.

"Of course you haven't. 'Anonymously' should have tipped you off, Barton. The man's not one for the limelight, and he's damned difficult to convince otherwise. Says it's for the best he stays unknown." There was a pause. "I have to agree with him in some aspects. It wasn't just your everyday basic biology he was studying. His focus was more on the…  _weaponization_  of biology. He kept that little tidbit to himself, gave all the anatomical research to the schools."

The silence fell on the room with all the speed and chill of a night in the desert. Clint could feel the gears in his head screeching to a halt before spinning back on track at breakneck speed. "You have a man specializing in  _biological warfare?_ "

Fury watched Clint's reaction carefully before he stood, moving almost thoughtlessly to look out the window, hands clasped stiffly behind his back. "He prefers to call it genetic warfare. And in case you haven't noticed,  _agent,_ we have men specializing in just about everything."

Clint ignored the purposeful press of his position and sat forward. "All due respect, sir, but what good is 'genetic warfare' against what we face every day? I mean, when was the last time our target was human? The biology would be completely different-"

"-which is exactly why we have Doctor Holden." Fury finished the sentence for him and turned back to face the desk again. "Holden has had breakthroughs in the last decade alone that most men fail to make in a century, and mad as he might be sometimes, he's a genius in his own right. The man can break down how something works and build it back from the ground up with an entirely new sequence in place that can make or break a man within an hour of contact."

Clint regarded Fury from beneath his lowered brow. "Exactly. A  _man_. We're not exactly fighting human beings on a regular basis, director."

Fury gave him a look that was just unsettling enough to shut him up.

"I said he can take 'something', Barton. He's been experimenting for years-"

"On what? It's not like we have a ready supply of lab rats!"

There was another long silence.

It wasn't even noon and Clint had had just about enough of long silences.

Fury spoke quietly, and the effect it gave couldn't have ever been achieved if he had shouted. "Don't pretend to know what you don't, agent. You think we just dumped all those Chitauri into the landfills?"

Clint shut his mouth with a click before turning his gaze back down to the file in front of him, understanding washing over him with an unpleasant shiver. People, he could deal with. Aliens could be dealt with too, just with a bit less assurance. But the kind of things this apparent doctor of theirs had been dealing with for both humans and aliens alike just plain unsettled him.

In more of an effort to distract himself than to actually study, he flipped the page over in front of him. "So, Doc Holden. Mad bio-slash-xenobio scientist doctor interested in 'genetic' warfare who needs me for…?"

Fury reclaimed his seat and perched his elbows on the desk, interweaving his fingers together and regarding Clint from over them. "He's developed a… probationary sample that can evolve into something of great value for us."

Clint narrowed his eyes at that. "A weapon?"

Fury regarded him carefully, his face giving nothing away. "Something that will help our cause immensely if it is successful, Barton, and that's all you need to know. Now, our doctor can only do so much with it in our labs on his own, so we've scheduled a drop for him to pass off the sample to another group of our scientists to observe and experiment. He needs  _you-_ " Fury quirked an eyebrow in emphasis, "to give him cover at the drop site. The area is mapped out-" He flipped a page in Clint's folder, revealing a detailed map of a rocky looking outcrop. "-here. Few miles out of a nondescript city in a nondescript forest up in nondescript Canada; you'll be in the boonies for this one, I'm not lying."

Before Clint could so much as open his mouth, Fury cut back in. " _Yes,_ Canada. Our people have a base set up further north, we're just meeting halfway.  _Your_  job is to cover from here-" he stabbed his finger at an overhanging point on the map that overlooked a small ravine, and Clint made a face. Ravines never were good places for drops. "-and make sure the handoff runs smoothly. You're going to want to watch your perimeter. Do us both a favor and don't. I don't want our good ol' doc to change his mind last minute and make a switch on us. You won't be alone, I'm sending you in with three other agents. They can watch your surroundings just as well as you can." He paused here with a grumbling sigh. "I might have mentioned that the man is paranoid."

Clint snorted. "If he's so paranoid, why is he willingly handing his work over?"

Fury huffed in thinly veiled frustration. "I never said he's doing it willingly. I'm sure you'll get an earful on the ride over." He glanced at the clock. "You deploy in five hours. It's cold as hell this time of year, so check in with agent Hill before you go and get suited up. Go get your things and… I don't know, scatter your nest or whatever it is you do when you leave."

The quip acted as both a tension reliever and a dismissal, and Clint gladly accepted both. He was saluting and out the door before Fury could even turn back to his mysterious papers.

* * *

At precisely 13:00:04, Clint got his first glimpse of his charge.

And that was just about all he ever needed from Doctor Holden.

Clint had pushed himself off of the shadowed wall of the hanger at the sight of the quartet making its way towards him from across the enormous facility. A solemn faced man about his own height and weight in pale cargos and a thick, woolen coat led the group at a plodding pace towards the jet they had been cleared to take to their rendezvous point. There were lines carved into the man's face that belayed his exhaustion from working in the field for so many years, and as Clint studied him further, he noted a few that were most certainly not from natural cause. A jagged scar ran down his cheek, starting below his left eye and tapering off just under his chin. It had cut deep, whatever it was, and it certainly made its mark effectively.

The scarred man looked like he had already had enough of his day, and as the group finally made it into earshot, Clint understood exactly why as a frenzied, deliberately polished Yorkshire accent exploded into distinction.

"- which is the only reason why you  _morons_ have been assigned! What, I've only been working for the organization for a solid decade of my life, why have trust in me at all? No, no, it doesn't make sense, doesn't it? Although I wouldn't expect you to understand, you being a grunt and all. But this is  _my work!_   ** _My_**  work! It doesn't need to go to these… these  _simpletons_ your such  _esteemed_ director calls scientists!"

As far as first impressions went, Doctor Curtis Holden didn't seem to give a damn.

The man speaking came into sight as he stumbled over a coil and pulled up alongside the scarred agent to continue his verbal abuse. The Brit was practically purple in the face as he spluttered ineffectively to his handlers, seemingly unaware of the lack of influence his words had on the men.

Barely reaching the shoulders of the agents beside him, Doctor Holden stood an unimpressive 5'9", his gait brisk and sure despite his stature. He held his neck thrust forwards, years of stooping over desks and microscopes already taking their toll. He ran an agitated hand over his head as his handler finally snapped something back in response to his complaints, cropped blond hair sticking from between his fingers and pointing in whichever direction it apparently so pleased. The doctor might have appeared to be his own age had the shocks of silver that gleamed under the hanger lights not been present in the sandy mess of his hair. While he had an average enough face, the purpling bruises under the man's pale eyes did little to help the image, and the scars and burns covering his wildly gesticulating hands and bits of forearms that peeked out from his own coat practically shattered any image of his true age completely.

Any other observation Clint wanted to do would have to wait, as the group pulled up alongside him beside the gleaming surface of the jet. Shouldering his bow case a little higher on his back, he shot a slightly amused look to the scarred agent as the doctor finished his tirade with an enormous gulp of air that did little to return the color to his pasty face. The agent took advantage of the pause and jumped right on the opportunity to get a word in edgewise.

"Agent Barton. Good to have you with us."

Clint simply inclined his head in acknowledgement. He knew the words didn't mean anything. They were more of a peace offering. No man in their right mind in the agency would consider a mission in the field with the Hawk as being a "good" opportunity right now. In lieu of a response, he shifted his bag again, sticking out his hand stiffly for the agent to grasp. The man did so with a gruff introduction.

"Neil Shelle. I'll be calling the shots of this little mess for a while. I don't believe you've met Doctor Holden. Although I'm sure you've already gotten just about all you need to know from him."

Neil winked slightly in good humor and proceeded to hammer his palm twice on the side of the quinjet as the doctor spluttered indignantly. At Neil's signal, a door hissed open, the gangplank lowering to rest on the floor with a dull clunk. Agent Shelle grabbed the edge and swept inside the plane, instantly barking out orders for room to be made for their equipment and the precious sample they were transporting. Clint found himself grinning ever so slightly as he offered his hand to the doctor in turn. "Well met I hope, doctor."

The doctor actually  _sniffed_ at him before gripping his hand with all the strength of a dead fish and flapping it once before letting go with the air of a man scalded. "We'll see, agent… Barton, was it? I'm told you're my eyes in the sky today. I only hope you're half as interesting as these hunks of granite here." He condescendingly adjusted his wire framed spectacles as he gestured sharply with his thumb over his shoulder to the other two agents of the group, who respectively rolled their eyes when Clint raised his brow to them. He recognized both from the training gym in the lower confines of the helicarrier. The short one on the left was Casey McBride, a weasel-faced, quietly dangerous son of a bitch who was written up once for taking his charge down with a toothbrush after he had insulted his heritage. The case had been dropped for unknown reasons. Clint never had much in common with the Irishman, but the two had struck a grudging respect for each other when they pulled a stalemate during one of the management's hand-to-hand combat sessions. They sparred frequently after that, and neither had yet to come out on top. Casey narrowed his eyes as Clint nodded to him in greeting.

Apparently the man was in the "never trust a corrupted assassin" boat.

What fun.

The swarthy agent clad in a worn leather bomber jacket on the right was Jefferson Miles. Jeff, in all of his 6'4" glory, was one of the more laid back agents of S.H.I.E.L.D that Clint had ever met. The man had a mind like a steel trap behind those mischievous eyes, and he was one of the few mid-range sharpshooters that was actually worth his salt within the agency. It had become a sort of routine of Clint's lately to snag the station next to his at the range to blow off some steam. It wasn't every day someone was so willing to banter and compete without staring in horror and waiting for his eyes to flash blue like so many thought they inevitably would. Now, the man just looked plain bored over the doctor's shoulder. He made a face at Clint as he caught his eye before grinning slightly with a halfhearted shrug. He obviously didn't want to be there as much as the others.

Neil came swinging back out the door to the quinjet, eyes roving over his ragtag group curiously. "We all acquainted? Good, then let's get moving, we're on a tight schedule here, folks." He disappeared back into the confines of the plane without another word.

Clint huffed a humorless laugh.

The next few hours would be very interesting  _indeed._

* * *

So here he found himself, stationed in the outskirts of the drop point, eyes on Holden as he impatiently tapped his feet in wait for his pickup crew. The case with the sample was held tightly in his fist, all black and silver and stamped 'hazardous' in a shade of yellow that quite frankly hurt to look at.

The radio was crackling, Jeff's call for status still hanging in the air.

The archer pinched his earpiece without taking his eyes off the scope, flipping on his frequency and responding shortly.

"Hawkeye. Status: bored as hell and in need of some serious snacks, gentlemen. Over."

A moment passed in silence before the radio came alive once more, this time with barely muffled laughter. "Hawkeye, I swear to God I'll buy you a pizza and a beer or five when this is all said and done. We're gonna need it."

A third voice joined in, this one significantly more annoyed than the last. "Radio silence, agents. Keep it quiet."

Another long second passed before Neil was back on the line.

"Thin crust with cheese and sausage. You're buying, Joker. Over."

Clint couldn't keep the grin off of his face as he imagined the other agent's spluttering from below his perch in the outer perimeter of the snow dusted outcrop they were stationed in.

"Excuse me, did the invitation sound like it included you, Ace? And who chose these codenames, man? They're  _despicable-_ "

A third, heavily accented voice joined in suddenly, overlapping Jeff's protests.

"Target in sight, confirm. Who's got eyes?" Casey was circling the perimeter around the southside, so Clint gladly turned his scope away from the doctor and scanned the southern horizon. Sure enough, a chopper was settling into a clearing not far from their own little ravine. "I've got eyes, Jack. Four friendlies, two en route. Let our joyous King know, if you please."

Clint could practically see Casey shaking his head in his mind as he contacted the doctor with the news of the incoming scientists. It wasn't long before the two appeared at the edge of the recess Holden was standing in with his sample clutched tightly to his chest. They made their way down to him slowly, picking their way over rocky divots and rough patches of slow forming ice alike before finally standing before him. The radio crackled once again as Neil's voice rolled through.

"Keep your visual, people. Let's get this over with and head home to part Joker from his cash."

Clint adjusted his scope slightly, pulling the trio below into better focus. Doctor Holden appeared to be arguing over something, his grip on the case tighter than even before. The two scientists appeared to be rightfully exasperated with the doctor and were speaking back much more calmly, hands gesturing and heads shaking. One was a balding man about Holden's size, dressed smartly in a shirt and blazer Clint knew must have been absolutely  _freezing_ , and the other was a woman with hair reminiscent of ravens and thin, gold framed spectacles. They glinted every now and then when she turned just so in the light, and the flash became almost mesmerizing as the negotiations stretched on.

After about twelve minutes, Clint was getting antsy.

"Ace, this is taking too long. We need to hurry this up."

"Hold position, Hawkeye, I'm on it."

Clint glanced in the general direction Neil had stationed himself in. The man was easily fifty feet across the gully from him, but with his stature he could clear the empty space in no time. He would handle this.

A sudden twist in Clint's stomach had him holding his breath for a painstaking moment. Had he heard something? What was his body reacting to? Heart suddenly hammering in his ears, the archer rapidly scanned the perimeter, ignoring Fury's voice in his head calling him a dumbass. As the snow had begun to drift even faster, all sounds had practically been eliminated. The silence was unnerving as Clint strained his ears and eyes. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Maybe he was just fed up of waiting at this point. It had happened before…

As Neil arrived at the edge of the perimeter and radioed down to the scientists below, Jeff's voice crackled into existence over the frequency with a long exhale.

"How do seven beers sound? Seven sounds good to me. And a thing of whiskey to get some feeling back into my hands, Jesus. Anyone got an issue with that, because I ain't buying for any lightweights h-"

He never finished.

Clint rocked back in shock as a sound equivalent to a building collapsing assaulted his ears and a fireball of massive proportions billowed into the air from where the helicopter once stood, chunks of earth and small smatterings of snow flying every which direction. The smoke belched high into the air, catching in the breeze whipping over the area and blowing towards the ravine at an alarming speed. Clint fumbled for his dislodged earpiece before shouting into it, his ears ringing distractingly.

"What the hell just happened?! Who had eyes on the chopper?"

There was no direct answer for his question. Neil took over the line as Clint snapped his focus back to his charges. The team leader was ushering the scientists out of the open and towards the overhanging rocks on the other side of the clearing, heads turning wildly.

"Abort, people, abort! We're getting these guys outta here! Hawkeye, do we have a clear shot to the jet?" Clint swung his scope to the route, eyes scanning rapidly as an adrenaline fueled focus came over him. "You look clear, but I can't cover you from here, Ace. Permission to bug the hell out?"

"Permission granted!" Clint stood quickly, swinging his pack back onto his shoulders next to his quiver and taking off along the ridge with bow in hand, keeping low and darting glances down at the group keeping pace below him. Neil's shout into the radio was audible even without it. "Joker, Jack, I need information! Find me that bomber!"

A sharp, breathless "copy that" came through from Casey, but at the prolonged silence from Jeff, Clint felt his veins run frigid. He almost convinced himself it was from the cold when he snatched at his earpiece, grasping it just after Neil did the same. The harsh "Joker, report!" rang in his ears as he sprinted with rapidly growing dread.

Whoever said silence was golden was an asshole, Clint decided right then and there. The radio crackled, the static practically mocking them as they waited for the reply they knew wasn't coming through. Clint flipped the switch on the earpiece, steel in his voice. "Who had eyes on the chopper, Ace?"

A moment passed before the voice responded, the words practically spat in bitter anger. "Joker, Hawkeye. Joker had eyes."

Clint exhaled in a huff, shutting his own eyes tight for a moment before snapping them open and shoving all the sudden emotion swirling in his gut to the sidelines. They were still in the field. That could come later. He needed to focus on the here and now. He gripped his bow tighter, knuckles white as he took off sprinting ahead of the group below. "Not anymore. Your path is clear, get moving!"

If the others had any reaction to the sudden flatness in his tone, Clint wouldn't have known as he skidded to a stop and dropped to a crouch, whipping out an arrow and nocking it in one fluid movement. The smoke from the wreckage in the south was starting to billow over them and mix with the slowly accelerating downfall of snow, and he cursed in Russian (a habit he really could've done without from Natasha) as the already limited visibility dropped even further.

Wasn't today just a peach.

It was just meant to be a drop mission! Just an escort, cover, drop, and make a beeline away from the package once it was delivered. It might evolve into a recon, but he wouldn't need to worry about that, they had said on the plane. Just do what you do best and watch out for the goings on below like the good little sniper you are, they said.

Nothing has a chance to go wrong, they said.

Oh, how much he wanted to force feed those words back to them with a little side dose of an uppercut right about now.

His skidding crouch brought him under the cover of an enormous boulder that looked easily one tap away from dislodging itself from the ravine wall. God, why did they have to meet in a damn  _ravine?_ Assassins avoided ravines and alleyways like the plague. Fatal funnels, they called them. Anything narrow enough to have a 100% guarantee of you taking bullets or other projectiles by leaving you visible and vulnerable was a huge negative. Add a little unpredictability from the weather and you've got a recipe for one incredibly ticked off assassin.

Clint had some serious bones to pick with whoever had planned this mission right about now.

Clint whipped his head towards the just out of reach jet as a sudden sound made it to him over the muted rushing of the wind. The snow had muffled just about every noise in the surroundings, casting an eerie sense of desolation over the area. The inferno that was the chopper most definitely did  _not_  help the image whatsoever. But in the forced silence, even the slightest of sounds traveled impossibly far. And travel they did.

Clint had spent too long in the field to miss a sound as distinct as the shrill whine of a bomb's charge gearing up to blow.

"Duck and cover!"

Another ear shattering explosion nearly rocked him out of his kneeling position behind the only shielding he now had; the boulder that had only just provided the overhanging cover he needed to keep an eye on his charges was now protecting his very life. The irony was not lost on him. Fumbling for another arrow with a curse after letting the first fly wild, Clint twisted in place, feeling the rough scrape of the ice and rock even through the canvas covering his knee. Nocking his arrow and taking a disarmingly frigid (and ash filled, and  _man,_ wasn't that a strange feeling) breath, the archer made an effort to get past the shock the sudden attack had rendered over him as he coughed viciously. It took him a moment to realize his ears weren't ringing as much, and that it was Neil screaming in his ear, not the aftereffect of the jet exploding. He put a hand to his ear, hacking a deep cough before responding.

"I'm still here, I'm fine. Won't be for long though if we don't find this guy."

Satisfied, Neil barked for Casey in the line. A static reminiscent of the one from Jeff's line made Clint squint tightly past the ski goggles agent Hill had forced on him in frustration. What the hell was  _happening_?

Before Neil could shout for Casey again however, the flurries of snow and smoke dissipated slightly, and Clint could clearly see two figures grappling in the dirt beside the wreckage of their plane. "Ace, I have visual! Jack is engaged with a hostile, probably our bomber-"

"Don't  _tell_ me, dammit, take the shot!"

Clint squinted into his scope, coughing as another wave of ash made it into his lungs. "There's too much smoke, I can't tell who's who. I might hit Jack. I need to get in there!"

Neil sounded righteously ticked off when he came back on the line with a horrible coughing fit of his own. "Stand down, Hawkeye, we need cover! We still have charges here and we don't know what we're dealing with!"

One of the figures in the distance stood suddenly, the other held tightly in a headlock. Even from the distance, Clint could see the sickening twist the man gave the other's neck. The figure fell to the ground and lay immobile as Clint took what he refused to admit was a shuddering breath. There was no recovering from a break like that.

The standing figure raised a hand to his head, and Clint narrowed his eyes as he waited for the crackling report from a breathless Casey.

It didn't come.

The figure took off in the opposite direction, but spun to a collapsing halt as Clint's arrow met its mark solidly in his left shoulder. The smoke overtook the downed form, and Clint stood from his perch quickly. "Hostile is down, Ace. Clear to move in."

A sudden rattling of gunfire had him thinking otherwise.

Diving back behind the boulder that had only just spared him his life, Clint hissed as a searing hot singe carved it's way across his arm. He spared the angry line of red from the bullet that had sliced through his jacket and grazed his bicep a glance before refocusing and nocking his arrow. He reached for his earpiece just as Neil's voice came over the line. And holy mary, if he was pissed before, he was bursting blood vessels at this point.

"I want these guys  _FOUND!_  Who the hell is shooting?!"

Clint ignored the enraged shout and sharply brought the man back into focus. "Are you in cover or am I about to regret my next move here?"

"What? Don't you be doing anything stupid, you hear me?" The scientists and the doctor were audibly panicking in the background, and Clint couldn't quite keep his eyes from rolling upwards as Neil had to stop and shout for silence. "We're all in one piece, Hawk, but I doubt for much longer. There isn't much space for cover down here." A sharp cough was heard before his voice rasped back over the link again. "Where is that shooter? How many are out there?"

Clint ignored the question as he shut his eyes and inhaled deeply, disregarding the searing smoke and freezing air. He exhaled slowly, opening his eyes and adjusting his sunglasses as he muttered to himself.

"Hoo, boy, someone's gonna owe me one hell of an explanation at the end of this one."

Before he could second guess his decision, he spun out from the cover of the rock and fired on the first moving silhouette he could see through the enormous cloud of choking dust that had overtaken the drop point. A tiny part of his mind was screaming at him to make sure he wasn't firing on a friendly, but his training forced him to do otherwise. Neutralize the threat, then assess the damage.

The arrow flew true to its mark, and as the first few  _spits_ sounded over Clint's shoulder as the bullets embedded themselves in the rock, the shooter fell without a sound, the arrow solidly planted between his eyes. Clint grimaced at the sound the body made when it connected with the solid rocks below before turning his attention back to the slowly dissipating smoke covering the drop point. The wind had picked up, and the smoke was lightening to a manageable point. Through narrowed eyes, he could see Neil stooping over something in the ravine below, the doctor pinned behind him with his case clutched to his heart like a lifeline. The female scientist stood beside the doctor, her hands clasped tightly over her mouth, hair disheveled and glasses glinting with the flames rising from the jet. The man was on the ground beside Neil, a blossom of deep red stemming from the left side of his torso and overtaking his previously pristine button down. The rapidly growing sheen of snow on the ground around him was practically saturated in crimson, and the man himself was as pale as death.

Clint had seen that wound before. He wouldn't survive.

Scanning the area once more, Clint made a quick decision and began to slowly slide down the incline towards the group below. He reached the bottom in a flurry of stones and ice and began to make his way towards his charges at a trot. As Neil looked up at him with fury in his eyes, he made to call out to them.

He was all of twenty feet away when it happened.

The smoke above the boulder Neil had taken cover under darkened considerably, and as Clint pulled up short to snatch an arrow from his quiver, the figure of a man leapt from the top of the ravine, snow spraying from beneath his feet and falling thickly into the chasm below just before him. The archer had an arrow nocked and almost loosed when he saw the grenade.

His shout of warning gave Neil just enough time to look up and lock eyes with the man who would have them all killed. Those same eyes flashed in aguish as recognition slammed over him like a solid kick to the stomach.

And then the ravine erupted in powder and slush and stone and fiery shrapnel and Clint knew no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback is a writer's cocaine, and I am hopelessly addicted. Any and all comments are greatly appreciated!


	2. Static

* * *

 

Maybe silence  _was_ golden.

He would have done anything for some to take place of the shrill ringing in his ears the second he regained his consciousness, anyways.

With his head stuffed full of what felt like throbbing, nettled cotton, Clint mentally tried to take stock of what had happened to him.

Something  _had_ happened, hadn't it?

Sluggish, fuzzy images thrummed in time with the pounding in his head, and slowly, too slowly, he started piecing them together. The ravine. The jet. Then no jet. Jeff. Casey. Neil. The scientists and the doctor. A shooter. A grenade.

A grenade.

Oh.

Well, that certainly put a damper on his day, didn't it?

After a minute of groggily piecing his thoughts into something more coherent than the haze of " _ouuuuuuch"_ it seemed fixated on, he registered a distant voice. Was it directed at him? It might as well have been underwater for all of the audibility it had. The thought gave him pause as his mind drifted to wondering if he'd forgotten his hearing aids that morning. No, that couldn't have been it. He distinctly remembered putting them in before suiting up.

"— _up,_ damn you! C'mon, man, you have to pull yourself together here. Get your ass moving, Barton, we're not here to sleep the day away! Why won't you  _get up?"_

Clint was pleasantly surprised at how quickly he reconnected his tongue to his brain.

"Maybe I find y'r eyes comfort'ng fr'm this angle."

Slurred as the statement had been, it appeared to be all Neil needed, as a loose, wild laugh of relief left the man. "Oh, thank God, there's the smartass. Genuinely had me wondering for a second there."

"'m touched."

Neil's voice changed then, a genuinely concerned undertone forcing Clint's brain to work harder to shake away the cobwebs. "Ok, Barton, I need you to open your eyes here, ok? Just open those baby blues up wide so we can make sure you're not concussed or anything." There was a pause and a snort as Neil seemingly considered what he said. "I'd be surprised if you weren't, honestly. Son of a bitch lobbed that thing right atcha. Must've been a couple of yards at most. I'm surprised you still have all your limbs intact here."

And boy, did  _that_ have Clint's eyes opening wide. The muddy swirl of whites and greys and browns that instantly came into view above him must have been Neil, as a patch of paler brown that must have been a face swam in and out of focus just above his head. The mess of color was accompanied by a sharp intrusion of light, and Clint found himself automatically trying to shut his eyes against the invasion of pain inducing brightness. A sudden force was prying them back open, and after a moment he realized they were fingers.

"Nuh uh, keep 'em there for me, kid. Just let them adjust, give it a second."

It took considerably longer than a second, but adjust they did. The ringing in his ears still throbbing in time with his head, Clint blinked away the last of the cobwebs that had been cluttering his vision and stared blankly up at Neil as the agent came sharply into focus. He was staring anxiously down at Clint, his eyes red rimmed and watering from the smoke that had so quickly replaced their oxygen. The leader held what looked like shattered goggles draped over the thumb of one hand, and after a groggy second of Clint staring down at the object resting against his chest, he realized they were his. He blinked distractedly before looking back up to meet Neil's eyes. The two stared at each other for a long moment before Clint put the day into beautiful perspective.

"Well, shit."

Neil gave a half manic laugh at that, squeezing Clint's shoulder as he did so. It was then that Clint realized he was being supported by his fellow agent's knees under his back and hands on his shoulders. "Couldn't have said it better myself. Now bear with me here, ok?"

He kept Clint's head balanced with one hand as he ran him through the gamut they were all well accustomed to for testing concussions. Clint's eyes appeared to be tracking fine as he followed Neil's moving finger, and after answering a quick list of simple questions with relative ease, Neil cleared him for the moment. As he had conducted the test, Clint had the chance to get a better look at his comrade. He looked like Clint felt (which was absolute hell, he vaguely noted), with a wicked looking gash spanning his forehead and his scar pulled gruesomely across his face as he scowled at a series of shrapnel induce nicks and divots on Clint's arms and what he assumed was his face as well.

The sudden severity of the situation bowled Clint over, and he made to sit up quickly. "Holden and the-"

He finished with an incoherent grunt as something in his chest flared horribly, forcing him to lever himself back to the ground. By the time he was vertical again, he could feel a thin sheen of sweat that had broken out across his brow. Neil had his hands firmly planted on his shoulders again, a stern "whoah, whoah, whoah" accompanying his guiding. His eyes were clouded in agitated worry as they darted across Clint's torso to something he couldn't see.

"Don't be doing that yet, I haven't had a chance to check you over. Only just got up myself before I saw you flopped over the rocks there." He took a deep breath and smothered a suspiciously wet cough, and Clint gave him a sharper look. He had just opened his mouth when the man hovering above him plowed on.

"The doc is fine, he got to cover much quicker than the rest of us. He was knocked out cold by our neighborhood grenade guy, but there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage. Just a couple of scrapes and a nasty case of shock, but-" he glanced over his shoulder in what Clint assumed was the doctor's general direction. "- I get the feeling he'll be a little out of it for a while."

Clint shifted his gaze from Neil's face to the surroundings he could see. What had been the ravine they had started with was now a smoking crater of wasteland, chunks of solid stone carved out from the valley like butter from a stick. Smoke still hung heavily in the air, and the disorienting switch between the cold and the heat from the smoldering plane washed over them in waves as the wind shrieked through the ruins, snow still spinning madly through the air. A few feet away lay the balding scientist, clearly dead from the bullet he had sustained earlier. Clint blinked sluggishly and turned his focus back onto Neil. "The other scientist? Was she-"

"She's gone Clint. Not dead, just… gone." He stared down uneasily as Clint raised his brows high onto his forehead in confusion. "I don't know what happened to her, all I know is I woke up with the doctor next to me and her missing. I've checked, there's no body."

A sudden shadow washed over his bright eyes as he continued. "That's not the worst of it, though. The sample is gone, too."

Clint shut his eyes tightly at that. Of course the sample was gone. That had to be what this was about. But who could have known where they were going to be or what they were transporting? As far as Clint knew, Fury had only informed the three other agents and the Doctor of their mission. He hadn't mentioned any other correspondence or explanations.

It struck Clint suddenly that  _he_ didn't even know the specifics of the sample he had just let slip into unknown hands.

A brief throb of pain from his chest had him hissing in a sharp breath and snapping his eyes back open. Neil looked guilty as he released the pressure his hand had held on the archer's chest. "Sorry, but I had to make sure nothing was broken. I think you might've cracked a rib or two, but everything else seems fine from what I can tell-" He trailed off in a hacking cough, doubling over alarmingly as he fell back against the boulder he had been supporting his back with. Instinctual alarm for his comrade had Clint gripped the agent's elbow and forcing himself to sit up before his brain had even caught up to what his body was doing. He dutifully ignored the eruption of fire from his chest as his eyes rapidly roved over the man in search of what was causing the horrible coughing. He stared in shock when he found the source, and suddenly, all clarity returned to him with an adrenaline spiked snap.

"Woah, ok, hold still! Jesus, what are you thinking? Stop moving!" He shifted to his knees, his own pain momentarily shoved aside. A mantra from his carney days wormed it's way involuntarily back into his brain, and he found himself clinging to it.

Pain was a message, and messages could always be ignored.

He held Neil's shoulder with one hand and hovered the other over the jagged shard of shrapnel sticking an easy half-foot out of the agent's side. He darted a swift glance to the doctor, who was propped against the side of the ravine with his hand clutched in his shirt and eyes wide and staring behind those thin-rimmed glasses of his. Clint shouted out to him to snag his attention away from whatever hellish things he appeared to be seeing.

"Holden, get over here! He needs help!"

The doctor gazed blankly at him for a moment before snapping to his senses and scrambling madly to stand on shaking legs. The Brit stumbled to their side before dropping to his knees in a puff of powder and assessing the damage with slowly, too slowly clearing eyes. He was mumbling incoherently to himself as he tried to quell the shaking in his hands, and Clint watched him closely as he pulled himself out of his shock as much as he could. His accent was considerably thicker in his distress as he finally cleared his throat and rattled off his diagnosis. "Not good, definitely very much so not good. Just missed a major artery, I would hazard to guess, but that will need treatment.  _Immediate_ treatment, mind." He looked pointedly at Clint as he finished, and the archer mentally smacked himself upside the head. The extraction team! Why hadn't they called them yet?

Backing away from his two companions and letting the doctor tend to Neil as best he could, Clint scanned the area for his bag. His bow lay in the slush a few yards away, amazingly intact despite the battering it must have taken. His sack of supplies and emergency equipment lay torn open mere feet from the bow. Standing shakily, he made his way to it in a stumbling sprint, skidding painfully to his knees when he reached it. Ripping it open, he tore through its contents, pulling out a sealed field medical pack and gripping the emergency extraction communicator from underneath the plastic case. Flipping the switch that sent out their GPS location (and breathing a short sigh of relief when the light flickered on), he fiddled with the radio portion until the channel was right. Compressing the trigger on the side of the radio, he barked his frequency code into the speaker.

"This is Clint Barton, alias Hawkeye, calling for immediate extraction. Mission has gone FUBAR, drop was compromised. We have injured and need medical on scene stat, do you copy?"

A long burst of static was his response, and Clint swore as he fiddled with the controls before repeating himself, albeit more desperately.

"Repeat, we need medical,  _now!_ We've got men down and need immediate extraction, respond!"

Static. Nothing but more static. Crackling, empty, chillingly humming  _static._

It held a whole new meaning, here and now. After Jeff, after Casey. After this.

It meant the end of the line.

Clint growled in frustration as a desperate sense of panic bubbled threateningly beneath the layers of forced calm his training had built upon him. Panic was an agent's number one enemy in the field; he had learned that the hard way on one of his first missions. The assassin had fought hard to reign in the feeling in any field operation after that disastrous job, and this mess was no exception.

The machine was obviously working, as the GPS was pinging off every few seconds, and the connection to the static filled channel meant  _someone_ should have heard him. So why was there no response?

A sudden cry from behind him had him tossing the transmitter back into the bag and sweeping it onto his shoulder as he spun back towards his companions. Snatching up his bow as he ran more sure footedly than before (and disappointedly noting the lack of arrows in the quiver on his back), Clint cleared the short distance between them as Neil let out another growling yell. "God's sake, man, you sure you've got a medical degree? Poking at the damned thing isn't gonna make it any better!"

Holden looked professionally annoyed at the low blow to his skills. "You're honestly insulting me in a time like this? Americans, I swear…" He distractedly snatched the medical kit from Clint's hands, rifling through and retrieving a thin roll of hemostatic bandages, a blister pack containing four pain pills, all purpose ointment that Clint highly doubted was of any use for puncture wounds, and field med certified tweezers that may as well have been chopsticks. The doctor rifled through the pack a moment longer, his face puckered as he grumbled. "Who assembled this kit? There isn't even a bloody tourniquet in here! And no gloves, what do they expect, perfectly sanitized hands in field situations? Honestly, boys, I'm beginning to feel sorry for you if this is all you're given to work with on a daily basis out here…"

Clint furrowed his brow at that, a heavy weight slowly making itself known in his stomach. The agents in the hangar had assembled the pack. It had been sealed. That meant it had been inspected. So how had it gotten through with such sparse supply?

It took several tense minutes, but with the use of the tweezers, Holden managed to extract the shrapnel with a fair amount of yelling from Neil. The chunk of metal (Clint estimated it to be barely an inch in diameter) had not gone completely through the man's side, and while the wound wasn't a pretty picture, it was manageable for the moment as Doctor Holden slathered the bandages in the ointment and Clint shook feeling back into the hand Neil had practically crushed when the piece had been pulled out. The doctor made to use the whole roll of bandages around Neil's torso, but the agent held up a hand as Holden wrapped another circle around his stomach, his eyes still sharp despite the injury. "Hold up there, doc. Barton needs a bandage for that arm and a bind for his ribs. Two cracked, left side."

Clint narrowed his eyes at Neil. "I can manage a couple of cracked ribs, sir, I've done it before with much less. You, on the other hand, need pressure to clot-"

"Oh, just shaddup and take the roll, would you? That's an order."

Clint blinked slightly before exchanging a long look with the doctor, who merely shrugged in uncertainty. He exhaled in a sharp puff before gesturing for the bandages. "Didn't take you for the kind of man to pull rank, agent Shelle."

Neil smiled dourly, his scar stretching into a thick line of unnatural pink across his tanned face. "Get to know me, kid, I've heard I'm a hell of a guy." The smile evaporated, replaced by a grim look of urgency. "What's the ETA on extraction?"

As Holden went about binding his torso, Clint pinched the bridge of his nose tightly and tried to massage away the lingering ache the grenade had left in its wake. "There is none. I didn't get a response."

Neil looked suitably shocked, before a sudden look of dawning horror spread over his features. Clint felt a bubble of concern in his chest as the agent opened his mouth, but whatever he had to say next was interrupted by the doctor's sudden shriek of despair.

"My sample! Where is it? Who has it? Where's the case?"

Neil shut his mouth with an audible click, a grumble of frustration taking place of his next words. Clint took the liberty of filling the doctor in on what had happened post-grenade as the team leader's eyes darted back and forth, brow furrowed as he seemingly attempted to recollect something. All color drained from the doctor's face, leaving the bags beneath his eyes stark in contrast to the chalky white pallor of his skin. Holden stumbled away slightly, hand searching behind him for the small boulder that had spared him his life and leaned against it with a choked "no!" and the first curse Clint had heard from him since their meeting. "It's gone? How can it be gone? Who the hell were the men who took it?"

Clint looked up past the edges of the ravine, hands shielding his eyes as he scanned their perimeter. "We're not sure. It could've been anyone-"

"I know who it was."

Neil looked solemnly back at his companions as they stared at him. He lowered his forehead to his hand with a heavy exhalation, elbow resting on his knee as he supported the weight. "I know who it was, and you're not gonna like it."

Clint snorted. "Wasn't expecting to. Who were they?"

Neil raised his head, eyes locking with Clint's, and suddenly he wasn't so sure he wanted to know. Agent Shelle plowed on anyways.

"They were S.H.I.E.L.D."

Silence reigned over the three for a full ten seconds, and then-

"Yeah, no, definitely don't like that much."

* * *

After Neil's little bomb was dropped, Clint had questioned him while the doctor sat on the sidelines quietly fretting over his sample. Apparently the man who had thrown the grenade had been in Neil's squad during his initiation into S.H.I.E.L.D. It had only taken a moment of eye contact for the agent to recognize him, and by then it was already too late. Clint listened to the explanation with a deeply furrowed brow, his mind racing as he tried to process what it was that Neil was saying. Did they have a mole at S.H.I.E.L.D? A traitor? He voiced the thought aloud, and Neil shook his head.

"The man was clean, Barton, there was no way he could've gone rogue on his own."

Clint shot him a barely reigned in look of panic. "So he was under some sort of control?"  _God, please don't let it be him again-_

Neil shook his head in earnest this time, although a flicker of doubt remained in his eyes. "I'm not ruling it out, but this whole thing… it just seemed a little messy for mind control, don't you think?"

That got Clint thinking, and he crossed his arms tightly over his newly bound bandage-and-kevlar clad torso. "You think this was an inside job."

"What else could it have been? I  _know_ he was an agent, it wasn't a mistake! And who else knew we were here?"

At that, Clint cursed and whipped around, ripping open his bag and pulling out the transmitter. The GPS was still blinking brightly, but no response had come through to his desperate request for evac. He hesitated for a moment before moving to flip the GPS's signal off, only stopping at a yell from doctor Holden.

"What are you  _doing,_ you idiot? That's our only way out of here!"

Clint turned to face him, holding the transmitter up for emphasis. "If Neil is right, then we've got a serious problem with home base here. Even if he's  _not_ right, there's  _something_ keeping them away, and personally, I'm not in much of a meet-and-greet mood for whoever it is on the other side of this line now, capiche?"

The doctor's eyes widened marginally before narrowing. He mumbled a string of curses before gesturing to Clint to turn the machine off. Neil sat up rigidly mid grant, however, his eyes lighting up as he shook his head fervently.

"Wait! We can use this!"

Clint eyed him for a short moment before responding. "For what?"

"We can see if anyone's actually looking. Might be good, might be bad, but we'll at least  _know."_

Clint raised an eyebrow at the man disbelievingly. "You want to potentially meet whoever sent our bomber face to face. Here. Right now."

"No time like the present, my feathered friend."

The archer squared his shoulders, pointing over the ridge to the plumes of smoke still being pulled into the air from the wreckage sites on either side of them. "Did you see the map on the way in? There's a town not far from here, someone's going to see the smoke eventually and investigate. We can wait it out. Hell, I can  _hike_ there if we need it. But somehow the idea of willingly attracting potential threats to an injured ops team does  _not_ sit well with me."

Another shake of Neil's head. "Do you really think anyone will see the smoke? In case you hadn't noticed, it's  _snowing,_ man _._  No one within a ten mile radius would even know what happened here until the storm passes. Look, just… hear me out. We can hide the transmitter in the wreck from the helicopter." Clint made to interrupt, but Neil plowed on. "Not the jet, it's too close. That way, we can see who shows up to the party. If they're here to help, we signal them. If they're here to hurt, we keep quiet and stay hidden. Then we can go with whatever brilliant plan you've got."

"It's not like we have time to be messing around with theories here, Neil! Jesus, you're  _bleeding_  from a hole in your stomach, how long do you want to wait out aid for that? The doc said it himself, we need to get you somewhere immediately-"

"How?!"

It wasn't Neil who had thrown the question out of the blue. The two agents turned as one to regard the now furiously pacing doctor. Holden looked up, glaring the men down. "How, I said! How could you idiots have lost the case? And you think it went back into the hands of our own  _people?_ They told me you were highly trained!"

Clint could have sworn he felt a vein in his forehead throb as Neil scoffed in response to the doctor's tirade. "Quality act, this doctor of ours," he muttered out of the side of his mouth to the archer. Clint only shook his head in response before holding up a hand to quell the doctor's ranting. "Look, I understand that your work is important to you, and we'll recover it just as soon-"

"Recover it?  _Recover_ it? Are you  _joking?"_ Holden let out a wild laugh then before darting his gaze between the two agents, a frenzied look in his eyes. "Do you even  _know_ what it  _was,_ agent Barton?"

Clint didn't have a chance to answer as a sudden whine emitted from his pack on the ground. Neil got to the transmitter before him and tuned the frequency back to the right channel as a fuzzy, non-distinctive voice filtered through.

Kzzzzt "-to agent Bart-"kzzzzzt "-traction team deploy-" kzzzzzt "-confirm location and number of injured, over-" Kzzzzzzt.

Neil shot a lightning quick glance to Clint before depressing the trigger on the side of the radio. "This is squad leader agent Neil Shelle, alias Ace. We are estimated seventy yards due south from the chopper the drop recipients arrived in." He paused briefly before coming to some sort of decision, eyes hardening and voice fatiguing. "We have five injured. Myself, Barton, McBride, and doctor Holden. Agent Miles is in critical condition; as a unit we are immobile. Requesting extra assistance, agent…? Who am I speaking with?"

Clint stared as Neil lied to the operator at base. On one hand, he understood the importance of giving the wrong idea to the man on the other end if they ended up being hostiles, however on the other hand he felt a niggling in the back of his mind that had him itching to snatch the radio and give the true statistics. Neil's question was still hanging in the air, and after an unnerving amount of time, the radio flicked back on, much clearer this time.

"Assistance en route. Hold your position, agent Shelle, extraction ETA eighty three minutes."

The radio flickered off with a sharp  _click_ of finality. Clint gave a long, hard look to Neil as they shared a thought they both had silently dreaded.

The man had not given his name.

* * *

 


	3. Ground Control to Major Who, Exactly?

* * *

 

It ended up being Clint who deposited the transmitter outside of the wreckage of the chopper. They had detached the GPS from the unit, keeping the radio safely tucked away in Clint's bag. The archer had left the doctor and Neil to clear the bloody evidence of their showdown as best they could and shuffle their way out of the slowly slush filling ravine and into hiding in the copse of brittle green and white shrubbery just beyond the ruined jet. As he had been shrugging on the battered spare jacket from his pack and gearing up to leave, Neil had snagged his sleeve, a resignedly mournful look in his eye.

"Keep an eye out for whatever... whatever might be left of Jeff," was all he had said to him.

It was all that  _could_  be said.

Clint stood from lodging the GPS under an elevated root beneath the only tree in the immediate area. He had checked the coordinates and found a spot almost seventy yards out from the wreckage, just as Neil had said to do. From the air, the GPS appeared to be transmitting from a well-sheltered area that could easily cover five men. Clint glanced around for supplies as a sudden thought struck him, and minutes later a boulder shrouded in his shredded jacket from the ambush was propped against the tree stump, two rows of gouged dirt and watery snow sticking out from the bottom and a handful of coarse grass wedged between the top of it and the trunk. Clint stared at it in disgust for a moment. It was childishly obvious up close, but hopefully from the air it would be convincing enough to pass for a person.

He doubted it.

Job done, Clint picked his way through the steaming remains of the helicopter, ready to make his way back to his companions. As he scanned for his next foothold down the ravine, however, he froze.

A shred of worn, russet stained leather was flapping wildly in the wind, wedged as it was beneath a sheet of metal from the helicopter's side. The movement was mesmerizing, and Clint found himself unable to move for several long moments. Whether it was the dread of what he would find on the other side of the wreck or the crippling hope of finding nothing at all, he couldn't be sure. Taking a gulping breath to recover from his sudden immobility, he forced his legs into action and moved forward, eyes locked on the scrap of leather and the hideous smattering of red surrounding it. He reached out for it before he was even close enough to touch it.

Gripping the material firmly, he pulled it from its matrix, relieved and disappointed at the same time when it came free easily. It was definitely a piece of Jeff's jacket, and Clint found himself searching the area before he even realized what he had decided. His search came up fruitless, however, and he made his way back to the others in a shroud of discontent.

He found the others hidden well inside the shrubbery. He wasn't sure he would have even found them to begin with had Neil not given him a low whistle. He avoided looking the agent in the eye when he presented him the bloody scrap of Jeff's jacket. No words passed between the two.

All there was left to do was wait. Clint gave his watch a quick glance, smearing off the thin layer of frost and blood that had caked on its surface. Their next moves would be decided within ten long minutes.

It happened in eight.

In the thick silence that had overtaken the group as the snow began to fall in earnest, the drone of an incoming plane was incredibly loud. Neil was the first to perk up at the sound, his gloved hand scrabbling for the radio in the confines of Clint's shredded pack. After a minute or so of the noise getting louder, the device crackled to life.

"S.H.I.E.L.D to Ace, come in, over."

Neil warily pressed the button as Clint stood by, stamping his feet in a futile attempt to keep warm. "Ace here. Tell me you've got good news, folks, that jet had better be one of ours."

The sound of the plane thrummed incredibly loud then as it passed overhead as Neil hastily released the trigger on the radio. Clint peered through the branches, spotting a low flying quinjet rocketing towards the GPS signal. The radio buzzed again.

"It's ours, agent. We have your signal, stay put."

A short moment passed before the voice was back online, a barely concealed hint of suspicion in its tone. "Agent Shelle, are you currently taking cover?"

Neil shot a sharp look at Clint, who quickly pantomimed the trees overhead, motioning to a singular one outside of the group they had clustered under. Neil stared him solidly in the eye as he responded. "Yeah, under a tree here. You see it yet?"

The reply was immediate. "You're all there?"

Neil's brow furrowed in apprehension as Clint slowly shook his head. "We're within its vicinity. I don't mean to be a nudge here, but any chance of hurrying it up? We're freezing to death down here and need some serious-"

The sound of a distant explosion rocketed through the speaker, causing Neil to drop the radio in shock. Clint rushed to the edge of the shrubs, leaning out and staring at the brand new fireball erupting precisely seventy yards south of the chopper's wreckage, smoke mingling easily into the flurries already sweeping through the air. The blurry silhouette of the quinjet hovered for a moment before drifting out of the way of the plume, and without warning the radio crackled.

"Ace?"

Clint turned quickly, eyes skipping over the hyperventilating doctor and settling heavily on the injured agent. Neil's eyes were wide in anguished disbelief as he stared at the radio on the ground, his codename echoing through several more times before whoever was on the other side was satisfied that the drop team was no more. The trio remained deathly silent as the sound of the quinjet gradually faded to nothing. Neil finally looked up, locking eyes with Clint and running a trembling hand over his dark, buzzed hair. He laughed shakily just then, and Clint blinked in surprise as he spoke.

"Mind if I do the honors this time?"

The archer made a face, unsure of where Neil was going with the statement. He didn't have to wonder for long as the agent followed up the question immediately.

"Well,  _shit."_

* * *

"How could they?  _How dare they?_ Who do they think they are, just swooping in and, and, and  _stealing_ their  _own_  investment? How could this have happened? They were all supposed to be loyal to the agency! They were loyal to the ends of this damned planet!"

And so the last few minutes had been passing by in such an excruciating manner as doctor Holden fairly exploded in an outrage, the efficiency of their apparent execution having finally tipped him over the edge of his already scarcely balanced reason.

Clint eyed the raving scientist from his leaning position against the rough bark of a tree and snorted disdainfully, ignoring the warning look from his other downed comrade. "Yeah? Well, so was Brutus. Frankly, doc, Caesar outranked you by a long shot."

Doctor Holden swung a glare onto Clint before he stepped forward and jabbed a finger purposefully into his injured ribs. Clint let out a pained whoosh of air as he doubled over and the doctor fairly growled up at him. "Laugh it up, agent Barton, but you have no idea what we've just unleashed here! My God, do you not realize what has even happened? Someone inside S.H.I.E.L.D is royally screwing over my work!"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't abuse my agent, doctor. Hit him like that again and I'll be forced to do something about it." Neil didn't look in any position to be doing anything about  _anything_ , but the steely glint in his eye remained. "We have bigger things to worry about than your work right now." Neil's voice was equally exhausted and irritated as the agent gripped the trunk to the tree beside him. He levered himself up to his feet, face pinched in pain as his other hand gripped his bandaged side. He waved Clint off as the archer made a move to brace him. Eyes scanning their hideout, he forced himself to straighten his stance, breathing deeply. He looked to Clint then, head tilted and eyes searching as a chilling breeze swept rapidly through their shelter.

"Well, agent Barton?"

Clint gave him a long look back before starting slightly.

"Uh… well, what exactly?"

Neil quirked a dryly amused eyebrow. "I said we'd go with your plan if my hunch about S.H.I.E.L.D had been correct. Unfortunately for us, it was.  _So,"_ he grunted slightly as he shifted his weight, rolling his neck and loosening the muscles that had tightened during their rather unplanned extended stay, "I'm up to hearing a  _really_  good idea right now. So, if you would be so kind, Barton, please. Enlighten me."

Clint's mouth twisted into a lopsided frown as he turned away from the expectant eyes of the squad leader, his own eyes roving vaguely over the grey mass that was the horizon line in the direction of the city he had seen on the map. Something in the back of his mind was squirming with unease. It had been over two hours since the smoke plumes had gone up, and not a single emergency vehicle had arrived. The storm might have kept the visibility at a low, but the sound of not one, not two, but three explosions  _had_ to have traveled. The city couldn't have been more than thirty minutes out of the way by car, and the only overhead investigations they had seen were conducted by the rogue quinjet. At least, Clint was hoping it was a singularly rogue band inside of SHIELD. Neil's theory held a lot less hope for them, and he refused to acknowledge the thought just yet.

Nonetheless, the lack of response to what were now three gradually dispersing columns of smoke was unsettling. Clint furrowed his brow, mumbling his thoughts aloud suddenly.

"How many other clearings are in this area?"

Neil regarded him curiously, the doctor's incoherent grumblings still buzzing incessantly in the background of their conversation as the man stomped in ragged circles behind them. "Only the two, from what I saw of the map. The drop point and the chopper's entrance point. What are you thinking in that cracked little noggin' of yours, Hawkeye?"

Clint bitterly ignored the quip as he shoved the underbrush away, stepping out onto the ledge over the ex-ravine. He found himself squinting in the glare from the snow liberally coating the ground and briefly mourned the loss of his shaded goggles before turning back to motion Neil out into the open. The man only stumbled slightly, his stance stiff and surprisingly stable. Clint eyed him carefully, a twinge of surprise running through him as the man made to stand next to him with just the slightest of a sway in his form. He'd seen stronger men choose to just lay down and die with disgustingly less than what agent Shelle had decided to push through. Before he could lose his train of thought, he voiced it aloud.

"If that's true, then the assailants couldn't have gotten away by jet or helicopter, yeah? So they would've had to take a ground vehicle. And if  _that's_ the case, then the closest place to regroup and vanish would be the city in the west." He pointed in what he hoped was the direction of the city's high rises from their standpoint. Turning a speculating eye back onto Neil, he continued. "Meaning that there is a very high chance that they are still there. In that case-"

"-they'll still  _have_ the case." Neil finished for him with a lopsided grin, his eyes burning with a purpose. "Would explain why they were so bold as to send a second strike force after us. They don't want any margin for error. Makes me wonder just how long they were planning on staying in that city in the first place." He reached out suddenly and gripped Clint's shoulder, giving it a solid squeeze. "Nice work. Let's move."

Clint threw his arms out at that. "Woah there, what are you planning on doing, exactly? Just waltzing out to a city that's easily thirty miles away in your condition? That's, what, ten hours of nonstop walking? They could be gone by then! There's not even a road close enough to hitch a ride within an hour from here!"

"Well, we can't just stay  _here,_ Barton! You just said it yourself, what, twenty minutes ago? What would you have me do instead, sit down and wait on the hope of someone swooping in to the rescue? In case you hadn't noticed, we have no safe contact anymore! We can't call for backup, hell, we don't even know if we  _exist_ in the database anymore! We could be ghosts here, man!"

Clint refused to admit that he glared at the man then. "If that's the case, then what good is the city for you, anyways? We can't exactly put you in the ER, we'd be red flagged as soon as we walked through the door!"

Neil's determined expression wavered slightly then, and the severity of the situation slammed full force into Clint just then. He felt his lungs practically freeze as an uncontrolled shudder wracked his body for a split second. Neil might have continued his tirade after that, but if he had, Clint didn't register any of it as his mind reeled.

They really were on their own. They could've been burned. Blacklisted. They had no intel, no supplies, and no friendly little lights to guide them home.

But they did still have an objective.

Clint took an enormous breath in and winced slightly as his ribs protested the pressure. He looked back to the doctor, who had stopped his raving to listen in on Neil's assessment of their situation. The man was regarding the two of them carefully from a few feet away, his hands clasped tightly together as his eyes darted between the duo. After a moment, Clint turned his eyes back onto Neil, who was staring at him with an intensity that appeared almost feverish. A beat passed before he relented.

"We better hit the road then, huh? Got a long haul ahead of us here."

Neil nodded resolutely at the statement, clapping his hand lightly to Clint's shoulder again as he stepped out further past him. The scarred agent had his gaze trained on the wreckage from the jet, and he addressed Clint over his shoulder. "I'm going to see what we can salvage from this mess. Something might have survived. You get your things together and meet me out here with our good doctor there."

With that, he strode away slowly, clearly testing his mobility as he teeteringly picked his way out to the downed plane.

It took all of a minute for Clint to sweep everything into his bag and sling his bow over his shoulder as the doctor looked on, oddly silent after his observation of their plans. Clint inquired after his shock, and the doctor had simply shaken him off, insisting he had bigger things to worry about than himself. Clint had frowned deeply at that, making a note to ask just what the sample was on their long trek. He couldn't quite keep his sigh to himself as he held the shrubbery aside for the doctor to leap out from, and they carefully made their way towards Neil and the still smoldering jet.

As they came closer, Clint got a chance to fully see the damage that had been done. The quinjet no longer resembled such a thing, and the time that the pieces had been exposed to the elements had simmered down the flames significantly, as the brush surrounding it was suitably soaked from the snowfall. Neil was stooping over something that resembled the secondary console in the middle of the wreckage, seemingly digging through the shrapnel in search for something useful. At Clint's approach, Neil straightened, a glance thrown in the archer's direction. The agent called out across the distance still stretching between them.

"Might be able to salvage some slugs here. Not sure what we could use 'em for, but hey. Gift horses are especially self conscious about the insides of their mouths."

Clint stared dumbly at the team leader for a solid minute. "Slugs?" He muttered, the image of mollusks flashing through his brain. His mind finally caught up to his ears, and he shook his head at his momentary spell of stupidity.

Jesus, he needed sleep.

With a sharp gesture to the doctor, Clint began to pick his way into the wreckage, his eyes narrowed as they roved over the warped scrap. There was a roiling feeling in his chest he couldn't quite place, and he grimaced slightly as it simmered into a more unpleasant feeling in his stomach.

He froze when it morphed into a familiar twinge in his gut, and this time, he knew better than to ignore it.

Pulling up short and throwing an arm across the doctor's chest to stop him in his tracks, the archer instinctively darted his hand up and over his shoulder as he reached for an arrow, mentally cursing when his hand gripped thin air. His eyes darted through the wreckage, searching somewhat desperately for what had given him the odd feeling.

They landed on a body partially buried in the piling snow, and he felt a brief pang of regret for Casey. The man had been brutal, but he would certainly never have wanted to go out like he had.

It took a long moment, too long, for Clint to piece together what he saw.

Or rather, what he didn't see.

"Neil! Get over here,  _now!_ "

The agent's head snapped up and swiveled towards the archer and the doctor, face blank in bewilderment at Clint's sudden shout. "What? Did you see something we-"

His expression changed instantly at the sight of something just to the left in the wreckage that was out of Clint's line of sight, and suddenly Neil was racing towards them at a stumbling sprint.

"Clint, get  _down!"_

A sickening  _spit_ echoed impossibly loud from the confines of the wrecked cabin, and a horrified expression overtook Neil's face. It would have appeared he had simply stepped on a particularly noisy piece of shrapnel had the ragged, powder burnt hole of maroon not suddenly appeared through his throat. Clint watched in horror as the man's body spun in a heavy descent.

The agent hit the ground with revolting finality, his body still and twisted from the momentum as a patch of crimson instantly began to taint the white ground around him.

He did not move.

Clint shoved the doctor back in the direction of the copse of trees, ignoring the man's terrified wails as he all but threw Holden into the bushes. "Stay put, you got that?" The short order was barked on deaf ears, and he took off into the field that had so quickly become a graveyard before the man could so much as consider an answer.

Keeping low as he raced into the wreckage, Clint reached for the automatic pistol strapped to his thigh, mind and heart racing as he forced himself to calm down. Neil had been right. There  _had_  been something that had survived in the wreckage.

Too bad it had to be their bomber.

Clint flipped the safety off of his weapon, breathing in one last gulp of frigid air to steady himself before mentally racing through the last minute. The shot had come from what was left of the cockpit. If that was the case, then the man had to be sheltering behind the front console, the only sturdy structure that could have remained intact. With that in mind, Clint grit his teeth and spun out into the open, gun held steady before him and eyes racing over the ruins. He swept past Neil without giving him a second glance, mind locked solely on eliminating his target.

The bastard was next to the console, just as he had suspected he would be. He spotted Clint the same time Clint spotted him, and the bomber lifted his gun with a horrible sneer that displayed his russet stained teeth as flecks of blood dribbled from his mouth. He was pathetic; so obviously over confident in his own abilities and punch drunk from the adrenaline of killing another man. His shoulder was a ragged mess, the shaft from Clint's arrow still sticking solidly from the joint like some grotesque prosthetic. It should have brought Clint some grim satisfaction to see.

All it brought was guilt.

He could've taken the guy down with the first shot. He never missed.

So why hadn't he just killed the man?

The bastard let out a short, gurgling cough, a fresh smattering of sickly red spattering on the snow. Clint had the handgun level with the man's forehead, only half of his attention on the gun loosely grasped in his target's hand. Why was he hesitating? What was keeping him from sending this man to start his nine circles?

Oh.

Right.

With barely a flick of his wrist, Clint shifted the aim of the gun and fired off a shot. The man's face contorted in agony, a howl escaping his lips as the bullet embedded itself in his thigh. The pistol dropped from his already loose grip, and his shaking hands moved to cover the fresh hole in his leg, a stream of curses falling from between the tight clench of his blood stained teeth.

Clint stepped forward purposefully and fell into a neat crouch before the man, his hand darting out and gripping his chin, forcing him to look away from the wound and into the eyes of one  _dangerously_  pissed off assassin. There was a spark of fear in the man's eyes, but it soon evaporated beneath the onslaught of pain from the new wound. Clint regarded him for a moment before he spoke. His voice was soft, but the steel in his eyes more than made up for the silence.

"Who sent you?"

The gurgling laugh wasn't so convincing this time, as it ended in a pained groan as Clint nonchalantly lifted the toe of his shoe and pressed it over the bullet wound on the man's leg. He raised his eyebrows, the gun in his hand lifting  _ever so_  slightly more into sight of the man before him. The question was about to leave his lips again when the man gave a wheezing response."

"Go… to hell… Barton."

Clint barely flickered an eye.

Rather, he released his grip on the man's throat and stood rigidly, ignoring the man's hacking coughs as he looked down on him in disgust.

He knew his name.

That had been answer enough.

A sudden lunge of movement from the man had Clint tensing again as his target's arm flopped out to grasp wildly for his lost pistol. Clint leveled the gun in the same moment the man's fingers found the cold metal of the weapon.

The third gunshot of the last short minutes rang out over the wreckage.

The man fell in an undignified heap, Clint's bullet leaving a sickening hole in the dead center of his forehead.

It was too quick for the likes of him, but it was what the archer dealt out today. He'd had just about enough of surprises.

Lowering his pistol with a silent wheeze, the archer took barely a second to breath before he spun on his heel and darted back to reach the fallen agent's side, mind slipping back into a more humane processing as he stumbled around protruding chunks of the ruined quinjet. The man lay just as he had fallen, and the snow had already begun to pile slowly on his form from what Clint could tell. The assassin felt his stomach drop at the exponentially larger stain of red beneath him, and he vaulted over the last bit of wreckage between him and Neil.

He would've called the man's name, but something in him already knew.

He didn't particularly want that silence that was undoubtedly going to reply.

Clint dropped lightly to his knees beside Neil, scanning over his features in desperate hopes of any sign of life. The jagged scar across his cheek looked even more hideous with the frozen features of the man's face stretching it grotesquely, the spatter of red across his chin doing little to offer the hope Clint already knew was impossibly out of reach. The ice beneath him shone with a sickening crimson, and the pool was too large, too deep a color to even suggest life was at the providing end. The bullet had gone straight through the center of his neck, and while it appeared to have missed a portion of his throat, the damage had been done. Clint ignored the distant thought, morphing into the cold professional he was as he put a steady hand to the limp wrist in front of him and removed the glove from his other hand with his teeth, hovering the bare skin over the man's slack mouth.

There was nothing.

No breath, no pulse.

Nothing.

Static on the radio.

* * *

 


	4. Count your Chickens

* * *

 

Anyone who said snow was  _magical_  and  _beautiful_  and all those other light, fluffy words had obviously never seen snow in the entirety of their idealistic, pathetic lives.

Snow sucked. Majorly, lividly, excruciatingly,  _sucked._

Snow  _especially_ sucked when you were trying to walk through gradually increasing, already foot thick drifts with a lack of proper equipment, two cracked ribs, roughly thirty tons of fresh emotional baggage, and a complaining companion all the while.

But yeah, aside from that, snow was just fine and dandy.

They had been hiking gradually away from the drop-point-turned-hellhole for roughly a quarter of an hour now, and the visibility had only worsened as they made it further and further away from the shelter of the copse surrounding the ravine. The temperature felt like it had easily dropped another five degrees with the newest flurry of gradually increasing flakes, and Clint had long since lost the feeling in his fingers and nose.

His brain halted at the distant thought, and he gave an experimental wiggle of his nose. Had he even been able to feel it in the first place? He'd never really given the tip of his nose conscious thought before. He tilted his head back distractedly to address the numbly grumbling doctor behind him.

"Hey, doc, I've got a question for you. Is it normal to be self aware of your nose?"

Holden stared at him in a mixture of confusion and revulsion as he stumbled over a well buried boulder that Clint had navigated around without mentioning. Oops. "What in the absolute seven  _hells_ are you talking about? I couldn't give a damn about your outer extremities right now!"

Clint lifted his shoulder and let it fall heavily in a shrug, his voice monotone as he turned his attention back to the distant fog of white and grey before them. "Condemn a man for asking, would you? Way to be a team player."

The hand that gripped his shoulder surprised him (and wasn't that saying something), and the doctor spun him around to bring him face to face with the shorter man's panicked, infuriated, and downright bewildered features. "What is  _wrong_ with you, Barton? You just saw three of your men get bloody killed and now you're asking about your damned nose? Did you not even notice the fact that our entire team has been eliminated like- like bloody  _vermin_ -"

He stopped abruptly with a squawk as Clint gripped his shoulders tightly and backed him up a step, leaning down so his face was barely three inches from the doctor's. His gaze was fairly swimming in fury as he glared the doctor right in the eyes, tightening his grip as the man squirmed. "Don't even think for a second that I'm disregarding our losses here, Holden. Like it or not, I wasn't made an agent yesterday, and I've had my fair share of casualties. They happen. And they're horrible.  _Now_ , you can either help me make sure they weren't in vain and work with me to get this damn sample of yours back, or you can keep whining about how unfair your life is and stay here. Your choice." His eyes bored into Holden's as the man's gaze flickered uncertainly across his face. "We'll give them an actual sendoff when we're out of the woods with this mission, but until that happens  _we need to focus and move on._ " He shook the smaller man here for emphasis before letting him go, watching as the doctor stumbled back with a gasping breath. Before he could so much as say a word, Clint turned and shouted over his shoulder as he continued walking.

"Work with me here, doc. They don't call me an Avenger for nothing."

After an unnerving twenty three seconds of walking away in relative silence (exempt the wind, of course), Clint let out an imperceptible sigh of relief when he heard the doctor stumbling to catch up.

There was complete truth in what he had told the doctor. He just hadn't told all of it. The deaths of his teammates were indeed weighing heavy on his mind, but he had long since been trained to shove the emotional baggage under the metaphorical carpet until he was in a position to properly deal with it. Neil's frozen expression of horror as the red coated his chin would probably come back to haunt his dreams for at least a week after they were finished here.

A sense of grudging agreement hovered thickly over the doctor for all of a minute, but after a few long moments of trudging along, Clint spared the man a glance. He narrowed his eyes slightly, as he most certainly did  _not_  like what he saw. Doctor Holden's brow was furrowed in deep thought, and his eyes had an almost mad focus to them as he stared out at seemingly nothing. Clint felt himself quirking an eyebrow as he watched his companion's face run through a gauntlet of emotions ranging from pained confusion to dim acceptance to something bordering on manic glee.

To say it unnerved Clint was the understatement of the century. He coughed harshly, breaking the doctor out of his stupor and drawing a puzzled glance from the man. Clint found himself speaking before he could second guess himself. "Whats got you so wound up? If you've gotta relieve yourself or something, just walk, like, ten feet thataway and you'll be out of my view-"

"An Avenger. Hawkeye. I'm an idiot, aren't I? Your codename should have given you away immediately! I'm blind! Deaf and blind!"

Clint couldn't help but stare at the man for a beat.

He'd be completely lying if he said his pride wasn't injured.

"You're telling me you… you didn't recognize me? At all?"

The doctor shook his head as Clint raised his brow disbelievingly. "Not even the name? I mean, how many agent 'Bartons' do you know in S.H.I.E.L.D?"

Holden eyed him disdainfully as his coat flapped noisily behind him in a sudden flurry of wind. "For your information,  _agent,_ I rarely see anyone aside from the lab tech. So at the moment, I know  _one_  agent Barton, and he is a rife pain in the-"

" _Really,_ man? You're telling me you didn't even watch the news in the last, what, two years? My face was literally  _everywhere!_ "

"The news was a little more focused on the iron suit, the god, the giant green abomination, and the ninety year old frozen war veteran."

"What, you're saying I'm not noticeable or something?"

" _I'm_  not saying that. The world is saying that. God's sake, you're an archer on a team of super humans, what did you expect?

"Now you're just being plain rude."

Doctor Holden huffed a visible breath of exasperation. "As much as I'd love to debate your non existent celebrity status, Barton, there are other things I would prefer to discuss." The odd look was back in the doctor's eye, and Clint felt himself tensing despite himself. What his companion said next stopped him completely in his tracks.

"I would much rather discuss the properties of your mind post the events of it's invasion."

Clint was frozen.

And no, it wasn't the snow and the below zero temperature of the Canadian countryside that Clint was really starting to loathe that did it. His mind stopped in its tracks altogether, causing his muscles to lock and bringing him to an abrupt standstill. The doctor caught the movement immediately and turned from his position, now several feet in front of Clint. He eyed him curiously, the gleam in his eye taking form now as Clint stared back at him, face a blank slate and mind refusing to broach the subject. It was only just then that Clint fully remembered just what Fury had said about this man.

He was stuck with a mad scientist deadset on understanding the biology and psychology of alien lifeforms in any way, shape, or form. And he knew.

Oh god, he  _knew_.

Clint opened his mouth, carefully wording his next sentence in his mind as his brain began to reboot. "I'm not entirely sure who, ah, gave you that information, but I'll be the first to tell you it's wron-"

"Oh, please, spare me," Holden rebuked, flapping his hand before him as if to wave away the lies Clint had begun to spew. Clint shut his mouth with a click as the doctor gave him a long, searching look before continuing slowly. "They don't get me to work for free in that lab of theirs, you realize. My price, agent Barton, is information. Specifically information on the unknown technology and biology that comes through now and again, but sometimes I'll get... other things. The juicy things, I should say. I know gossips. I know how people  _think._ And I know things about the agency that even I would probably be better off  _not_ knowing." He paused before giving a sardonic snort. "Apparently not enough to know about just how corrupt it's become." He shot another look at Clint, his expression tightening as he refocused on the subject. "One of their favorite little throwaways getting his will sucked away by an Asgardian is hardly the most expensive tidbit I've ever been given."

For the first time in a very long time, Clint was speechless as he gaped at the doctor. Throwaways? Who the hell did this guy think he was? A not so tiny, definitely toxic part of his mind started niggling at the back of his conscious, whispering that  _that had been what you'd thought of yourself all along, so why was it so different hearing it from someone else?_ He hadn't quite realized just what he would be forced to deal with these next few hours or however long it took them to reach the road. The stuffy, high maintenance doctor had just become even more of a handful.

Just his luck. Just his rotten, completely and unarguably famous, horrible luck.

It took a moment for Clint to realize the doctor had shifted closer, professional curiosity on is face as his eyes darted over Clint's features. "Have I triggered something? My mistake, that might not have been the wisest course of action given the current conditions-"

He was cut off as Clint finally snapped out of his daze and interrupted, voice chillingly soft and incredibly dangerous as he stared down at the man, causing the shorter man to take an uncertain step back, foot sliding slightly over the icy terrain. "Listen to me very closely _._ I don't know what you're playing at, but you're going to drop it, and you're not going to pick it back up. You're never going to ask again if you want your spine to stay on the  _inside_ of your body. We clear?"

The doctor never got a chance to affirm or deny, as Clint glanced past his shoulder as a flurry of movement in the distance caught his attention and a solid shape appeared on the horizon line. It was unmistakably a building of some sort, and Clint could practically feel himself sagging with relief at the sight. He shouldered past Holden roughly, some part of his brain that sounded suspiciously like his brother telling him it wouldn't be such a bad thing if the doctor just "miraculously" got stranded in the countryside.

He didn't give the thought a second of attention.

As he trudged closer to the building, nosy companion in tow, he caught more details from its exterior. Pieces of the wall were peeled up and flapping lightly in the occasional gusts that billowed through, and there appeared to be more roof tiles on the ground than actually on the roof. Clint felt his relief waver slightly, but he plowed through the snow with a renewed vigor, determined to find some use of what was beginning to look like an abandoned building.

As they got even closer, he spotted an overhanging cover of some sort, partially caved in on itself and crumpling against the two pillars that had once held it high over two solitary rectangular hunks of metal.

A gas station.

A very  _old_ , in a all appearances abandoned gas station.

There was the old Clint Barton luck coming back to catch up with them. He'd wondered where it had gone when he spotted the building.

Apparently it never left.

Clint circled the building, peering inside the fogged over glass and squinting as he tried to make out the interior. Giving up, he curled his gloved hand tightly and lashed out, smashing the glass of the window and brushing the shards that fell off of his sleeve distractedly. Slipping through the hole with feline silence and fluidity, he darted a glance around the building, tensing despite his suspicions of the little mart being entirely abandoned. You could never be too careful in his line of work. The last four hours had just proven that something awful.

His quick scan brought nothing to light, so he stepped further into the building, eyes scanning the empty shelves and landing on the register and front counter. He made his way to it swiftly, searching through the cabinets and drawers with the efficiency he liked to think he was known for. He faltered slightly at the thought, and scoffed bitterly. Unless, of course, mind controlled 'throwaways' weren't known for anything but just that.

His little search brought forward a pack of matches, a small tin of multicolored paperclips, a plastic case with four dial locks, a pack of gum, a roll of flimsy scotch tape, five dust coated plastic bottles of water, three multicolored bungee cords, a half used roll of duct tape, a large package of tire chains, and a rusted over pocket knife in need of a serious sharpening.

Clint planted his hands firmly on his hips and scrutinized his spoils on the counter for a prolonged moment before closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. "More than Budapest, I guess," he muttered on the exhale. His mind flitted to Natasha and fretted over her for a short moment before he quashed the feeling. Neil's predictions from his last minutes swam through his head uninvitedly at the thought, but he shook the tension out of his shoulders and resolutely shut the thought of his one true companion in the agency being in danger down. If S.H.I.E.L.D had been corrupted somehow, she would have found a way out in time to straighten herself out. He knew her. She was capable.

Sweeping his findings into his battered pack and tossing it back over his shoulder, he made his way back to his improvised entrance and slipped back out into the elements. The gales slapped at his face the second his feet hit snow, and he squinted futilely as the biting wind nipped unforgivingly into his exposed skin. He shielded is eyes and turned to the corner of the building where he had last seen the doctor.

He wasn't there.

Swearing under his breath, Clint surveyed the surroundings, eyes scanning over nothing but white landscape. He trudged his way to the other side of the building, gripping the corner of the crumbling mini mart and stomping down an overgrown (albeit dead) bush of some kind. Stepping over the crumpled heap of twigs, he turned his attention back upwards and stopped dead in his tracks.

Whatever he had been expecting, the sight before him certainly wasn't it.

The doctor was stooped next to a bona fide  _car_ , fiddling with the lock. It had clearly been abandoned long ago, and the longer Clint gaped at it, the easier it became to identify. It was an old sedan, probably an eighties model Civic, if Clint had to hazard a guess. He couldn't care less.

He'd have taken a motorcycle and been happy with it.

Pulling himself out from his stupor, he cleared the space between him and the car in seven long strides, circling the battered vehicle while the doctor glanced up from his ministrations.

"Figured you wouldn't want to bust the window on  _this_ , at least. If we can use it, we might as well keep the snow on the outside, eh?"

The doctor's words passed over Clint's head entirely as he prodded at the hood, forcing it to groan open with a sound not unlike that of a dying mule. He leaned over the inner workings of the car's components, eyes jumping from one side to the other, picking up every detail he could. It was old. Very old. Pieces were frosted over, and Clint found himself dusting them off idiotically. After a moment of fiddling, however, he could clearly see the rest of the interior, and he felt a humorless laugh bubble in his chest.

It would run. Granted, it wouldn't run for long, and there would be no coaxing any fancy wheel work out of it, but that didn't matter.

They didn't need long.

A slow grin broke across his face as he leaned back and gingerly shut the hood. It appeared the rotten luck of one Clint Barton had finally gotten fed up and gone on its merry way.

Clint stepped around the front of the car and nudged the doctor out of the way, ignoring the man's splutter of protest as he kneeled before the lock. It barely took a minute to crack with the knife and a couple of the paperclips.

The archer slipped into the driver's seat, pulling his bow and quiver off of his back as he did so and tossing them lightly into the back seat. A puff of dust and other things Clint didn't even want to think about came loose, drifting lazily in the cabin before settling back to rest on the drab grey cloth upholstery. He reached a hand experimentally under the steering column, grinning triumphantly when he met no resistance in the panel under the wheel. The screw popped free on its own accord, and the hatch gave way to a mess of wires. Tugging the wiring harness connector out from the mess, he eyed the multicolored tangle critically before registering something in the corner of his eye. He spared a glance for the doctor, who was currently leaning into the doorframe and watching the whole process with unmasked interest. Clint had just opened his mouth to tell him to shove off when another idea came to mind.

"Hey, this is a Honda, right? The ignition wire is going to be a different color depending on the car. Can you check the front for me?"

Doctor Holden regarded him with genuine disbelief on his face as he gestured towards the wheel. "The logo is quite literally an inch from your nose. What more confirmation do you need?"

Clint shut his eyes and counted to three before opening them and inhaling deeply at the same time. "That it is, doc. Thanks. Now would you get in the passenger seat and quit breathing down my neck, please?"

By the time the doctor had quit grumbling and flopped heavily into the seat on his right, Clint had stripped the ignition wires and taped them loosely with the scotch tape from his bag, connecting the loose ignition to the battery wire. He had just finished stripping the starter wire with the rusted blade when the passenger door shut with a creak. He eyed the doctor for a brief moment before turning his focus back to sparking the newly stripped starter and the battery. As the seconds stretched on and nothing happened, Clint's shoulders began to sag. He furrowed his brow as he fiddled more urgently with the wires. The doctor spoke up then, his deliberately accented voice startling Clint for a moment.

"It's too old, isn't it?"

Clint grunted slightly. "It's not the age that matters, it's how long it's been sitting. Everything looked decent enough to run up front, it's just the ignition that's being a pain in the-"

The words had no sooner left his mouth when the wires sparked and the engine came to life with a series of shuddering coughs. Clint perked up considerably, and he revved the engine once, twice, three times without the car stalling. He let out a satisfied "ah, ha" and shut his door with a solid  _slam._

In less than a minute, he had the car peeling out onto the only road leading south towards their destination. It took some serious fiddling, but the doctor managed to get a tiny puff of warmth from the heater. Anything was better than nothing, though, and the cabin was just warm enough for the feeling to return to Clint's nose. He wriggled it purposefully.

Yeah, he was  _definitely_  aware of his nose.

The car had only shuddered a couple of times since leaving, and Clint relaxed back in his seat as much as he could. He winced slightly at a twinge from his ribs, and his hand involuntarily came to rest on the bandages binding his torso beneath his kevlar. He caught the doctor giving him a piercing look and drifted the hand back to the steering wheel. Holden broke the silence that had settled after the ignition.

"Do you even know where we are, agent Barton?"

Clint stared resolutely out the windshield as the slowing gusts of snow flew past, the barest hint of sarcasm tinging his tone. "Canada."

He could feel the doctor staring at him disdainfully from the passenger seat as he repeated the archer's unhelpful information. "Canada."

"Up  _north_ in Canada, specifically."

"Up north."

Clint raised a brow mockingly, the barest hint of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Up  _very_ far north?"

The doctor all but exploded with an exasperated groan that ended in a lengthy sigh. "What is this city, then? Does it have a name, or is it just 'a city up very far north in Canada'?"

Clint actually cracked a smile at that, ignoring the frown on the doctor's face at the sight of it. He rolled his shoulders with his hands firmly planted on the steering wheel, listening to the satisfying sound of the bones cracking and loosening his muscles in the slightly warmer interior of the car. He spared his companion a glance before focusing back on the plowed road. "City of Etford, doc. Called the " _ville du Fantôme_ " by the locals. Relatively small group of locals, keep in mind, I mean the population has got to be…"

He paused here as if to gather his thoughts and recollect the numeric information from the file. "…drunk."

"You're not serious."

"Look around you, how else could you decide to live in a freezer like this-"

"I meant the  _name_. Ville du Fantôme? As in French for-"

"-city of the ghost?" Clint finished for him. "Yeah. I had the same reaction to the file. After seeing that station, though, I'm inclined to believe it."

Silence reigned for a long while after that as the few high rises of Etford slowly came into view through the windshield. Clint let a few more seconds pass before clearing his throat loudly and shooting a searching look at his companion.

It was time to broach the subject that had been put off for  _far_  too long.

"This sample… why would a third party be interested?"

Doctor Holden snorted at the question and crossed his arms tightly across his torso, gathering what little heat he could around himself. "Why  _wouldn't_ they be?"

Clint opened and closed his mouth for a short moment before finding the right words. "Ok, not entirely the answer I was looking for. What  _is_ this sample?"

The doctor looked uncertain in the reflection of the skewed rearview mirror. "Fury really didn't tell you what it was?" He snorted before Clint could answer. "No, I suppose not. He likes keeping his pawns in the dark. Makes the game more entertaining for him, I should think. Makes it quite a bit of fun for  _me_ as well, really, and after all, you don't exactly  _need_ to know-"

Clint slammed the brake, bringing the already shuddering car to a positively terrifying stop that left Holden's teeth rattling. The archer turned completely in his seat and glared at the doctor, barely reigned rage simmering in his eyes as Holden's head snapped back to hit the headrest of his seat, shock plastered across his face as his glasses were knocked clean off.

"Someone was willing to kill you and my  _entire team_  for whatever was in that case, Holden. That doesn't exactly sit well with me, so you'd best be telling me what the hell you were working on before they finish the job and  _I can't clean this mess up_."

The doctor was silent as he regarded Clint carefully, his eyes flickering back and forth from one side of the archer's face to the other. Coming to some apparent conclusion, he shook his head and slid his glasses back over his nose before locking eyes with his companion resolutely.

"It was death, agent Barton. Instant, excruciatingly painful death."

The weight of the silence was suddenly all too noticeable to Clint.

After a long moment of consideration, the archer turned slowly back to the windshield and depressed the gas pedal, inching the car back on track. It was another few seconds before he spoke, his voice coated in a careful tint of sardonicism.

"You've got a real flair for the dramatic, don't you, doc."

* * *

 


	5. Fantôme

* * *

 

The city of Etford barely qualified to be called as such.

Coming from a thriving metropolis like New York, however, was bound to give Clint some bias towards the definition of what a proper "city" entailed.

With three high rises sticking pitifully into the air from the center of the town, it appeared to be more of a pathetic attempt at claiming some sense of authority way out in the long forgotten Canadian countryside. The sidewalks leading into the city were as crowded as any structured small town could be expected on a winter's week day, the meters lining the ice slicked street abundantly vacant. The odd four-door or van was scattered around the parking areas out front of the little shops and restaurants lining the road, odd logos and pun loaded slogans Clint had never seen nor ever would have wanted to in his lifetime. The gusts of wind and the snow they carried had all but stopped when they entered the city's limits, the elements held at bay by the confines of the common concrete funnels of the streets.

The Civic was the only car driving down the strip, and Clint found himself watching his surroundings with a new sense of anxiety. They caught a couple of odd glances tossed their way, but a couple was enough. He had been hoping for a little more anonymity, but Etford didn't seem the place for such wishes. They would have to tread carefully if they didn't want to draw attention to themselves and wreck their one chance at recovering the sample.

Clint's eyes slid to his passenger, who was rifling through the glovebox in search of either a distraction or anything potentially useful. Silence had reigned over the car for several long minutes now, and as Clint's eyes slipped back to scanning the streets, he found he was for once unwilling to break that silence. Too much had been said already, and the weight of the words filled any emptiness the silence might have held.

It had certainly been a tense drive into the city as the doctor had relented and explained the sample to him, head in his hands and glasses perched precariously on top of his head.

"It's a chimera," he had started, the reluctance of sharing his information evident in his strained tone. "Two potentially lethal biological toxins mixed into one cesspool of unquestionable destruction. I'd been working on it for some time before S.H.I.E.L.D even understood what it was."

Clint had interrupted then, his voice dripping in disgust. "So, what, you just enjoy throwing together strains of deadly bacteria in your spare time? You should take up a hobby, doc. I hear floral arranging is astoundingly therapeutic."

Holden did not even spare him a glance then, and the change in attitude sobered Clint slightly. The doctor had continued with an exasperated sigh. "To be entirely truthful,  _I_ didn't even know what it was until I had a breakthrough. A week ago, maybe two. I had been adjusting a simple botulinum toxin sample to see what sort of effects it had on extraterrestrial tissue samples. There hadn't been much preparation for the project; it was more of a… spur of the moment stroke of brilliance, we'll say. Of course, that stroke of brilliance led to something that could wreak absolute havoc on your central nervous system-"

Clint gave the doctor a slightly alarmed look. "What, like rabies?"

Holden looked grim. "Not quite. Rabies certainly is a central nerve based disease, however this is on a much grander scale, you have to understand. Think of it as… rabies' granddaddy's grandaddy."

Clint furrowed his brow as he thought for a moment. "I'm assuming you don't mean the socks-and-sandals, gardening aficionado granddaddy."

Holden rolled his eyes skyward, anchoring them on the ceiling of the cabin. "No, agent Barton. That is not what I mean."

He appeared to be deep in thought for a moment before continuing with a click of his tongue. "I mean the grandaddy who keeps a high pressured hose in his garage to spray the kids who so much as look at his lawn."

Clint stared blankly at the man. When the silence got unnerving, he reluctantly turned back to the windshield. "Ok, we're officially off track here."

Holden was quiet for a quarter of a mile after that, and Clint had just started to wonder if that was all the man would offer when he lifted his head and went on. "The toxin had no effect, of course. I didn't expect it to. But then I had started thinking: what other bacteria could I use for skin based transfer? The obvious answer, of course, was anthrax."

Clint couldn't stop his snort of derision at that. "Of course."

Holden finally glanced at him then, his eyes distant but his frown evidently pointed at the archer. "I am a scientist, agent Barton. It's my job to piggyback off of archaic ideas." He turned back to stare out the window, his tone changing to something oddly distant. "I got to work as best I could with what I had. It took me months, but I discovered a way to alter the genetic coding of the botulinum to accept the anthrax as it's own design. I became my own doctor Frankenstein, as it were."

"Then I'm assuming Frankenstein's monster was functional."

"Oh, yes, it was functional. Just not in the way I'd expected. You see, botulinum toxin and anthrax both are potentially lethal through contact of the skin, however they both possess an even deadlier option of introduction: inhalation."

"And how did we find this out exactly?"

"I tested the prototype of the strain on one of our live subjects in the sealed experimental chamber in the lower labs. The damned casing slipped from the clamps and shattered before I could apply it to the skin. The idiots maintaining the lab hadn't upgraded the controls for months, and it cost them dearly, let me say. The sample was airborne within the cell, and I considered it a botched trial before it had even begun. But, still, my curiosity won out. So I waited."

"Within eight hours, the subject had undergone full paralysis of the muscular system and was displaying agitated breakdowns. Within that same day, the respiratory system failed entirely. It was dead within sixteen hours of exposure." He paused momentarily to take a deep breath and scrub at his eyes tiredly. "I won't bore you with the details, but I will say this: it wasn't pleasant. The botulinum toxin fused to the points just between the nerve endings and the muscles and raised absolute hell for the brain until the anthrax shut down the respiratory system entirely. Nerve endings, lungs, brain tissue, everything compromised within one day's cycle."

An uneasy hush had fallen then, and Clint had been vaguely surprised to find his grip on the steering wheel to be excruciatingly tight. He had loosely nodded a few times then, his next words slipped out of a locked jaw as he made a conscious effort to unclench his white knuckles. "So naturally, instead of dropping it like the absolute red flag it was, you created another strain."

The doctor regarded him carefully, and Clint was surprised to find the barest hint of remorse in his eyes at a glance. "I had to be certain. I'm not the only one in my field, you know. If I hadn't discovered this chimera, someone else undoubtedly will. It's only a matter of time. Which was my thought process after the first subject's trial. I thought if I could replicate it again, then I could start the work on the cure-"

"-which is when director Fury stepped in and recommend you transfer the work to another laboratory," Clint interrupted, the pieces clicking rapidly into place in his mind. "I get why you weren't too happy to be handing it over."

Holden snorted. "How would you feel, handing something like that to a total stranger?"

Clint wove the car lightly around an abandoned tire on the road as an unbidden question popped into mind. He glanced at the doctor. "Did you name it?"

"What?"

"The strain. Did you name it?"

The doctor scowled at him before turning back to brood at the road out the window. "I did."

The silence engulfed the car again, and Clint rolled his eyes. "Feel like sharing?"

"No."

A sign had whipped past on the right of the road, informing them that they would be entering Etford in five miles. Clint had eased off of the gas pedal then as an ominous shudder ran through the car, but after a minute or so, the noise stopped and the framework settled back again. The archer stared resolutely ahead, his mind trying to grasp the entirety of the situation he had fallen head over heels into as the engine coughed pitifully.

Just another fun filled day at the agency.

Something leapt to the front of his thoughts and a spike of cold dread ran through him as he replayed the explanation rapidly through his brain. He caught the doctor's eye in the rearview mirror. "This 'live subject'. Was it human?"

Holden paused before shaking is head, sandy hair tossing wildly. "It was of Chitauri origin."

Clint's eyebrows shot up at that, and he was hesitant to hope as he pressed for more. "So we might not have anything to worry about, yeah? It might not even work on humans-"

"Don't mock me, Barton. I've worked with enough specimens to know likenesses and the differences in generic biology. There is no doubt in my mind that this chimera strain would kill any living being it so much as drifted past."

The silence had gone unbroken for a long time after that.

The doctor broke into Clint's reverie then, pulling his thoughts out of the recent past sharply, the dull thump of the Brit's thin finger hitting the glass making the archer glance over curiously. Holden was pointing to a two story building with a deep blue picket fence surrounding an ancient looking neon sign. Every other letter or so glowed softly in what Clint dimly realized was the twilight. The storm clouds had done a decent job at covering any form of sunlight that may lent an idea to time, but a glance at his watch told him they did not have long before the sun would set in full and night would fall.

"There," Holden said bluntly, "A motel." He exchanged a short glance with Clint before continuing with the slightest of shrugs. "We'll need to regroup, yes? You said it yourself. Pull in just there, it looks like there are vacancies."

Clint eyed the building critically, his mind already calculating the routes in and out of the little establishment. There was a stubby, paint peeled ladder dangling haphazardly off of the left side of a fire escape from the second floor, and the next building over was a manageable fifteen to twenty feet away, it seemed. It appeared to be just far enough out of the way from the main strip to not garner too much attention in their state. The fact that it was a motel was even better, as they took cash in full and tended to avoid asking too many pressing questions. In the end, the decision was practically made for him.

He spun the sedan neatly into the lot, driving around the building and parking in a spot practically invisible from the street. With a sharp tug of the tape holding the wires under the wheel together, the car died with a low, frame wracking groan. Clint gave a short motion for the doctor to stay put, and with that he popped open the door and grabbed his bag in one smooth movement before making his way towards the entrance of the motel.

Ten minutes of playing the part of the sheepish tourist and a currency exchange for a one night payment of 110 U.S dollars later saw Clint leading the doctor to their room on the second floor, his bow and quiver covered as discreetly as manageable with a scant, moth eaten blanket they had found under the back seat of the Civic. He opened the door for unit 205 with a harsh click of the lock, instantly flipping on the light once he entered and striding past the two beds to the fogged window with a sharp glance around the small room. He scanned the area below appreciatively, his thoughts flickering briefly back to the confusion on the concierge's face when he asked for a room overlooking the back alley. The desk worker had certainly delivered, and they were positioned in a spot that had (as well as Clint could tell) four solid points of escape if needs be.

The archer shut the curtain to the small window with a quiet sigh before turning back to address the elephant in the room.

Holden had already made himself comfortable, his boots kicked off haphazardly by the door and his slush covered overcoat dangling limply from a thin hook on the back of the door, a pinprick of a puddle already growing on the floor just beneath the dripping jacket. The man himself was stooped low over the space heater in the corner, muttering darkly to himself as he cranked the dial to it's highest degree. A short shudder rattled through the machine for all of three seconds before it coughed and gave in, and blessed heat began to seep thickly into the tight quarters. Holden straightened out with a satisfied hum and turned towards Clint, crossing his jumper clad arms as he did so.

"To business, then?"

The doctor rose his eyebrows slightly as he spoke, and Clint inclined his head in a short nod as he tossed his bow and quiver lightly onto one of the hideously tricolored comforters, dropping his bag at the foot of the bed as he did so. He rolled his shoulders with a low groan, the series of pops running down his spine urging him to sit down heavily on the foot of the bed as he reached for the straps to undo his kevlar. The springs creaked noisily beneath him and the mattress was harder than solid stone, but the give of the sheets felt like absolute heaven for the moment. As he slipped the kevlar off of his torso, the sudden absence of pressure on his chest sent a spasm through his chest. Hclosed his eyes briefly, his hand finding it's way back to his ribs as they burned with a newfound urgency. He'd practically forgotten about them during the drive, so engrossed was he in the doctor's explanation. Forgetting about them didn't appear to help their case any.

His eyes popped open when the doctor spoke again, his voice much closer than it had been before. Holden was stooped before him, his eyes shining somewhat manically behind his glasses. "While I understand you did not escape unscathed, agent Barton, we can't afford to concern ourselves about that right now. There will be a lot more suffering than the pain you feel now if we don't get what we came for."

Clint's eyebrows shot up at that with a snort, and he shook his head ruefully after a short pause. "Gee, doc, you've got an incredible bedside manner."

Holden stood to his full height again, his sweater clinging wetly to his shoulders as he crossed his arms with a puff of sarcasm. "So I've been told. Now, if you would please, what is our  _plan?"_

It was all Clint could do not to grab the paper thin excuse for a pillow behind him and throttle the man with it. But he held back. He eyed Holden critically then, taking in the sopping patches of melted snow and rain around the collar of the fitted sweater he wore, the beige color turning to a dark mess of black in some areas from the dampness. The man himself hardly looked any better, and while his lips were losing the blue tinge they had when they had found the car, his skin was still deathly pale. Clint glanced at his watch then and made an executive decision with a puff.

"The  _plan,_ doc, is to set up a search for our thieves. And the  _plan_ is going to take a while to form. There was a mini mart on the way in that was off of a back alley down the road. I'll grab us some grub-" He held a hand up to stop the already protesting doctor here before continuing with a pointed look. "-because I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to have some energy when we inevitably come face to face with these clowns." He stood from his seat, turning to rifle through what was left in his bag as he addressed the doctor over his shoulder. "In the meantime, why don't you get cleaned up or something? Guy behind the desk said they just got the water heaters back on for the showers in the building."

At the mention of a hot shower, the doctor became remarkably silent. Clint turned back to his rummaging, extracting a wad of mismatched bills and a well worn, thickly knit hat the color of a ripe plum that would actually do some good for him now that the gale force winds posed no threat to blowing it clean off. By the time he had gripped a towel from the door to the bathroom and scrubbed it furiously over his head to dry as much of his hair as he could, Holden had reluctantly shrugged out of his soaked sweater, his grumbling negated by the careful look of relief on his face as he stepped into the tiny wash room and shut the door with a harsh clunking of the broken lock. Clint shook his head disbelievingly as he tugged the cap over his head. The doctor was definitely a piece of work.

The sooner he could finish this and never see the man again, the better.

The streetlights had flickered on in earnest at some point as true darkness swarmed the city, and as Clint tugged the tall collar of his dark overcoat higher in front of his chin while he made his way down the practically deserted street towards the mart he had seen, he found himself delving deeper into his thoughts against his will. They hadn't planned anything further than what they would do once they reached the city. How were they supposed to search for a man neither of them had seen? A pained thought flittered over his consciousness, and he took a moment to mourn the fact that the only man who had seen their bomber was buried under a solid sheet of snow and sleet by now.

He shook the thought off as the glowing lights of the mini mart came into view around the corner, and he stepped through the automatic doors carefully, eyes scanning the few customers mingling in the sparse aisles. No one so much as spared the open door a glance. Clint shuffled casually to the nearest rack of baskets with a long stare at the grease slicked pizza under the hot light at the counter, and he found his stomach twisting in a combination of hunger and distress as Jeff's last promise rose unbidden in his mind. He turned resolutely away from the offending object and scanned the aisles thoroughly with a slight nod of his head.

Sandwiches it was, then.

He left the store with a single paper bag containing four thick sandwich wraps, two full bags of chips, and a six pack of the most caffeinated soda he could find bumping his knee lightly as he strode back into the frigid night air. He had stared long and hard at the meager alcohol section of the store, but professionalism won out on him. He needed his wits about him. Besides, he wasn't much of a drinker anyways nowadays. The buzz only lasted a short time for him before his mind turned to things he thought he had forgotten ages ago, and he always woke up the next morning with a hell of a headache and a heart made of lead. So, soda.

A small rustling noise from the alleyway beside the mart had him spinning on his heel suddenly, and he practically dropped the bag of groceries as he took up a defensive stance. His eyes roved over the inky darkness of the recess, and he narrowed them when the noise stopped abruptly, the sudden silence broken by a tiny, quickly muffled gasp. Clint felt his muscles relax slightly, but his shoulders stayed in their tensed position as realization dawned on him.

It wasn't the cold, dead eyes of a killer staring up at him out of the blackness.

It was the eyes of a terrified, shivering kid.

Clint and the child stared at each other for several long moments, neither breaking the tense silence between them. The kid, who couldn't have been more than six or seven years old, was halfway up the dumpster, hand still frozen over the edge of it from where it had been rummaging. The longer Clint looked, the more details began to pop out to him, like the sallow harshness of the kid's cheekbones and the greasy glaze of dark, matted hair. It didn't take an expert to realize they were homeless.

The thought tugged at the back of Clint's mind painfully. He furrowed his brow and opened his mouth to address the dumpster diver.

Whatever he had to say was knocked out of him with a whoosh of air as something slammed into his leg from behind, and he pivoted as the projectile bounced off of him and landed in a heap on the ground. He was surprised to find a young boy sprawled across the snow, his eyes glaring resolutely up at him from under an equally greasy mat of hair. He seemed to be slightly older than the child on the dumpsters, but not by much. His glare was punctuated with a sharp jab of his finger as he suddenly pointed up to Clint, and he scrabbled to find his feet as he spoke with a quivering voice.

"Stay away from her, y' hear? Don't get any closer!"

Clint blinked slightly in surprise as the boy scrambled to stand in front of the girl on the dumpster, his feet planted firmly as he crossed his arms and tried to look menacing. The sight only made Clint's heart twist even more as his mind flashed back to memories of children who looked a little too much like these two coming and going in the orphanages he and Barney had been so unfortunate to have gotten to know.

They never stuck around for long.

At Clint's continued silence, the little boy's face wavered slightly, uncertainty playing across his features as he shifted his feet.

It was the thick shiver that suddenly wracked the boy's too thin frame that did it for Clint.

The kid blinked in surprise as he stared at the plastic wrapped sandwich abruptly appearing in front of him, and he looked up to regard Clint with a cautious curiosity. The archer was stooping low, his elbow on his knees as he held out the sandwich to the kid. He looked the boy in the eye, his face neutral as he shook the sandwich slightly after a long moment of stillness passed. He spoke casually, his tone carefully bland.

"You going to take it, or should I find something to prop my arm with here?"

The boy started, and with another lightning quick glance up at Clint's face, he darted his hands out, grabbing the sandwich and backing away just as quickly to stand beside the girl perched on the dumpster. When they stood next to each other, Clint darted his eyes over them, catching the similarities in their features and concluding that they had to be brother and sister. He was reaching back into his bag before he even knew what he was doing.

Staring disbelievingly at the bag of chips and the two cans of soda in Clint's outstretched hands, the kids stood rooted to their spots, eyes uncertain of this strangely helpful man. They exchanged a long glance before the boy slowly moved forward again, his small hands grasping the bag of chips and the bottles slowly as he cautiously looked up to gauge Clint's reaction. The archer kept his expression blank as he looked back. The boy opened his mouth, his lips trying to form around words he appeared to not have said in a very long time.

"Th… thank you?"

It sounded more of a question than a statement, and Clint nodded nonetheless, the slightest of grins pulling the corners of his mouth upwards as the boy watched his reaction carefully. "Don't eat it all at once, you'll get sick. Save some of it for later." He paused before nodding his head in the direction of the boy's sister. "And don't let her drink too much of that soda if you don't want a sugar crash on your hands, got it?"

The boy's eyes brightened slightly, a grin of his own quickly being covered with a scowl. "Weren't born yesterday, we know."

He doubted it.

Clint sobered at the boy's resolute expression, and he sighed slightly as he glanced up at the heavy clouds reflecting the freezing glow the snow had left over the city. "No, I didn't think you were." He glanced back down, catching the baffled look on the boy's face before he could smother it. "You got a place to shelter for the night?"

That had both of the siblings shutting their mouths with almost comically audible clicks, their exchanged glances answer enough to the question. As Clint watched them carefully staring at each other and conveying messages through glances as only siblings could, an idea began to take root in his mind.

By the time they both reached some conclusion and turned to address him, his mind was racing with possibilities.

"What's the biggest hotel around here?"

The kids looked taken aback at the sudden change of question, and the boy was answering before he seemed certain of the purpose. "Elk Valley Inn, I think." His face became suspicious then, and he handed the chips and sodas to his sister slowly. "Why?"

Clint rocked back on his heels, making a show of thinking hard. "In my experience, the big hotels have powder rooms outside of the bathrooms. Sinks, couches, weird soap. Prep rooms, they're called sometimes. The staff usually stops monitoring them around eight." He glanced at the kids, thoroughly amused at the confusion marring their faces as he went on. He spoke considerably slower then, careful to emphasize the right words in as subtle a manner as he could. "They have two doors for getting in. One on the inside of the hotel, and one on the outside. The outside doors tend to stay unlocked on garbage day, which should be…" Clint held up a finger and glanced around at the bins scattered all along the sidewalk, pausing for effect as the sibling's faces slowly began to clear in understanding. "…Huh. Today, I think. So almost anyone could get in through the back door and, I don't know, clean up and get warm. Or something."

He trailed off knowingly as he stared down the street, his eyes sliding back to the children in front of him as his head remained turned away. They were staring at each other, a careful kind of hope taking hold of their expressions. They turned as one back to Clint, who slowly tilted his head back to nonchalantly examine his watch. The boy gave him one last, long once over before settling his gaze back on his face, the suspicion almost entirely gone from his stare.

"Why… are you telling us this?"

Clint regarded the boy for a short moment before locking eyes with him.

"You shivered."

It was a simple answer, but it appeared to be the one the kid needed as the suspicion made way for a rush of relief in his eyes. He let a small grin of his own overtake his face. This time, the words came easier to him.

"Thank you."

Clint just inclined his head, a short salute accompanying the action as he stood. The little girl giggled slightly behind the boy, and the sound made her brother turn and smile toothily at her. "C'mon, we gotta get there before they lock it up!"

The archer tilted his head, feigning deep thought as he furrowed his brow. "Y'know, after you've theoretically washed up a bit, I'm sure you could get away with loitering in the lobby tomorrow morning some, too. Just tell them you're… waiting for your parents. Say you're visiting. Business trip." He paused here. He'd have to word his next suggestion carefully if he didn't want them to suspect anything. He shrugged ever so slightly as they stared up at him, eagerly absorbing the information. "If they ask what room you are, give 'em your best puppy dog eyes and tell them you forgot. Throw in some sniffles and you should be golden." He looked between the two as they nodded fervently and shifted on his feet. Now came the tricky part.

"If you're still hungry tomorrow, you could always come back here. You never know who might be hanging around." He gave the slightest of winks, and the boy smothered a grin with a quick cough.

With that, Clint stepped away from the alley, sweeping his arm out in an 'after you' sort of gesture. The two darted out from behind the dumpster, rushing past Clint with stuttered thank-yous and mumbles of awed gratitude. They were halfway down the street when the boy turned around, the enormous sandwich held tightly in his too thin hands.

"Hey, mister! What's your name?"

Clint scooped his marginally lighter grocery bag into the crook of his elbow, shoving his hands deep into his pockets as he did so. "Tell you what: you give me yours, I'll give you mine."

The boy looked contemplative for a moment, before smiling wryly. "It's nice to meet you, mister Nobody!"

And with that, the boy spun and took off into the night after the hushed trills of excitement of his sister.

* * *

 


	6. To Catch a Raven

* * *

 

The door to the motel room hadn't even shut behind him before the doctor addressed Clint dourly.

"Well. That only took you a millennia."

Clint rolled his eyes as he threw the deadbolt and tossed the key onto the rugged desk beside the door, the clinking of the metal muffled abruptly by the splintering wood. "I got caught up."

The doctor snorted at that, and Clint turned to regard him with a raised brow. Holden was perched on the edge of one of the beds, his hair slightly damp from the shower and a thin, scratchy looking robe swallowing his frame. "Oh, pardon me, of course. Sorry to impose on you and your 'catching up'," he stated, fingers thrusting into the air and creating imaginary quotations around the words. "Excuse me for having some sense of concern over the potential  _extermination of a bloody nation."_

Clint tossed a sandwich to the man a little harder than he might have planned. The projectile smacked Holden square in the chest and dropped to land in his lap, effectively cutting off his words. Clint jumped at the opportunity to speak. "I got  _caught up_ setting a plan into action. So if you'd shut up for two seconds, I will  _gladly_  bring you up to speed. You finished?"

Holden considered him through narrowed eyes before reaching down and unwrapping the sandwich. He bit into it with a vigor and motioned for Clint to continue. The archer shut his eyes for a brief moment as he inhaled deeply.

God grant him the patience to get through this.

"There were a couple of homeless kids hanging out around the mart. I gave them some food and a bit of advice." The doctor predictably interrupted sardonically around a mouthful of turkey and lettuce.

"Oh, so we're picking up  _strays,_ I see, I see. Completely necessary for finding our man. Oh, wait now, hold on a moment… It's  _not."_

Clint held up a hand, a sharp rebuke on his tongue that he fought hard to keep back. He tilted his head, waving his hand slightly for silence before continuing slowly. "We're buying  _eyes_ , doc. I sent them to the only main hotel in the city and told them to loiter a bit. They'll say they're here with their parents on a business trip. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure this place doesn't get much outside attention, so whoever recently booked into that hotel-"

"-is going to be our defectors," Holden finished for him, understanding seeping into his expression slowly. He paused, deep in thought, before gesturing with the sandwich. "How do you know they won't be in a motel like this one? You said it yourself, it's better for staying anonymous-"

"They had a team. There were definitely more than five of them, and with a group like that, it's easier to check into a hotel under the cover of a business meeting or some BS," Clint interrupted him. "A group that big and with as much equipment as I get the feeling they would have is more suspect in a place like this."

Holden's eyes never left his face as he explained, his stare unnervingly blank as he absorbed the information. He spoke as soon as Clint finished.

"How do you expect to get that information? Did you tell the street rats to ask for it?"

Clint bristled at the 'street rat' remark but tactfully moved on without mentioning it. "Not directly. They would have been suspicious if I had. It's a start, however."

Doctor Holden stared disbelievingly up at him from beneath his brows. "A start? Barton, we don't have  _time_ for a start! We need to find them as soon as we possibly can!"

"What else do you suggest, then? We don't exactly have a description of this guy, we can't just go asking around! And even if we did, that would raise some serious questions that we can't afford to deal with right now!"

The silence was punctuated by the doctor angrily biting into his turkey wrap, the wet crunch all but ruining the tension of the moment. Clint ran a hand over his head, removing the hat and flopping down lightly onto his own bed as he dug through the bag for his own sandwich. He snagged a soda and tossed it to the doctor, who caught it in some surprise before popping the top with more force than necessary. The annoyed hush that had fallen hovered thickly over them for several long minutes as they devoured the sandwiches, the occasional rustling of the chip bag interrupting the silence.

Clint was in the middle of staring at the logo of a manically grinning beaver face on the paper bag woefully and contemplating eating the second wrap when the doctor suddenly stiffened, his soda frozen halfway to his mouth. Clint quirked an eyebrow at him, and after the dingy clock on the bedside table ticked off several long seconds, he inclined his head.

"You feel like sharing, or do you want me to read you mind here?"

The words had barely left his mouth when he knew they were the absolute wrong thing to say. Holden glanced up sharply at that, his eyes boring into Clint's with an intensity that unnerved him. "Can you? Read minds, that is. Is it an aftereffect? How does it-"

"Woah, woah, woah. Ok, stop. It's an expression, doc, of course I can't read minds." His face darkened as he mimicked the doctor's sitting position, his elbows balanced on his knees. "I still stand by my offer of removing your spine if you bring that up again, by the way. Free of charge. In case I wasn't clear enough."

Holden only paled slightly before sitting back against the wall beside his bed. "Nothing's free, Barton."

Clint stared disbelievingly at his insufferable companion before barking a humorless laugh. "Can't believe you actually just said that, man." He rolled his shoulders with a grunt. "Now, you going to tell me what ramrodded a stick up your ass there, or should we play twenty questions?"

The doctor shook off is frenzied fascination at that and shot a sharp look at Clint. "You're right. We don't have a description of the man who ambushed us."

"Well, yeah, we've established that-"

"But we do have a description that could come in handy."

Clint stared at the doctor, his brain trying and failing to latch onto what it was the doctor was getting at. After a moment of silence, Holden rolled his eyes and made a grandiose gesture with the soda can.

"The  _scientist,_ you idiot. The woman!"

The wheels clicked in Clint's mind, and he sat back as the realization swamped over him. Of course! How could he have possibly forgotten the missing scientist? There had been no sign of a struggle, and they never  _had_ found a body, so she must have gone with them. Whether it was willingly or un, they would have to find out. He addressed the doctor with a twinge of impressed surprise. "You think she's still with them?"

"I think she's  _one_ of them."

The bed springs creaked noisily as Clint stood with the slightest of winces, balling up his wrapper and tossing it towards the distant trashcan by the door. It got caught in the unexpected burst of the heater turning back on and bounced off the rim, much to his disappointment. Clint resolutely ignored the pointed look that practically screamed 'really?' the doctor gave him as he strode over to the bathroom, creaking on the faucet for hot water and thrusting his hands under the gush of clouded liquid that spurted out from the sink. He splashed the water over his face, raising his voice slightly so the doctor could still hear him in the other room.

"So, going off of the chance that they didn't kill her and dump the body somewhere, what's your plan? We'd still draw attention if we started asking around for some woman."

The doctor's voice drifted through the door. "I'm not the strategist here, agent Barton. Use those little spies of yours or something."

Clint stared balefully at his reflection in the spotted mirror for a long moment before shutting the door behind him with his heel and preparing for what would probably be the best shower he had ever taken.

It wasn't.

When he emerged from the bathroom, hair damp and steam swirling into the room behind him, his eyes landed on the doctor rifling through his battered utility bag. He raised his brows before addressing the man.

"That's considered rude, y'know."

The doctor didn't so much as bat an eye. "Didn't you say you found water in that station somewhere?"

Clint couldn't keep himself from snorting as he unzipped the only pocket not ripped open on the pack. He handed off a bottle to Holden, who took it with a sharp nod and scurried back to his own bed.

The archer had just reclined back on his own bed with a long sigh when the doctor's voice shattered his reverie.

"What do you think you're doing? We need to act, not sleep!"

Clint eyed him moodily for a moment before responding with a slow groan in his voice. "And act, we will, when we have something to go off of. Look, all I need is a solid two hours, and I'm golden, got it? Just… let me catch my breath here before we take the plunge."

It was apparently too much to ask, because after a minute or two ticked by, the doctor broke into his thoughts again.

"Did he let you sleep when you were being controlled?"

Silence.

Then,

"There's a place between life and death, doctor, as I'm sure you know."

Clint paused for effect as the doctor remained uncharacteristically quiet.

"Amazing how long a man can linger there, don't you think?"

Holden coughed as the water he had been drinking went down the wrong way, and Clint cracked an eye open to stare balefully at the spluttering Brit. The man tilted his head back with a hack and made a surrendering gesture with the hand not holding the water bottle.

"Duly noted, Barton. Duly noted. Although, I do think we should discuss your less than professional approach to creating this plan of yours…"

Clint shut his eye with an enormous burst of an exhale as the doctor continued to ramble. This would be one long night.

Unless…

Opening his eyes a slit, Clint shot a quick glance at the doctor. Seeing he was facing the other direction as he went on in his muttering rants, Clint lifted his hand slightly and set a finger in his ear, deftly flicking the hearing aid nestled inside off. The slam of total silence in the one ear was a bit alarming at first, but as per usual, it barely took a second to readjust. He paused, listening through his left ear. The doctor's mumbling barely registered. Better to leave at least one aid on in case something happened, anyways.

Clint grinned to himself as he shut his eyes and let his muscles uncoil slightly as he relaxed as best he could into the mattress.

They told him he'd have a hard time finding perks to being 80% deaf.

Ignorance, thine name is audiologist.

* * *

Recon work was the worst kind of work there was.

There were cubicle workers and plumbers who would vehemently disagree, but Clint couldn't give a damn. Recon work was hours of standing, and watching, and waiting, and mind numbing apathy as you search for your target.

It was especially horrible when you had no time frame for the target's arrival. You couldn't afford to zone out or get distracted for a single millisecond, meaning you had to be aware of every passing moment and all of it's hair tearing, tear inducing, brain imploding  _boredom_.

Clint wasn't good at being bored.

He looked up from the magazine he had stopped pretending to read over an hour ago and nodded casually to a pedestrian, who eyed him curiously. The woman sped up as she walked past, clutching her purse a little tighter to her side as she did so. Clint watched her go with an indignant expression.

What, did he look like a mugger?

Maybe she just hadn't agreed with his choice in magazine.

He glanced at the cover, reassuring himself it had been a pointless celebrity gossip mag that did more people bashing than the Hulk ever had. His pride took another small hit at the thought, and he turned back to staring at the mini mart across the street with a snort. A quick, sharp glance at his watch had him sorely wishing he had more time to come up with a plan.

Maybe it was just odd to see a man sitting on a wall in the partial shadows of a crumbly apartment building at seven in the morning.

Clint sighed, allowing himself a shiver as he pulled his makeshift scarf tighter around his face. He had taken the rusty knife from the gas station and hacked away at the patch of a blanket from the car, tearing a strip of fabric long enough to wrap around his neck several times and offer the extra warmth he was hoping it would. The snow had stopped some time in the night, but the temperature remained the same, and the chill was absolutely unforgiving. Clint stared ruefully at the mart across the way, watching the workers prep the store through the windows and leaning back further against the wall with a disgruntled grumble.

Maybe the kids had exceeded his expectations and actually managed to finagle their way into the hearts of the employees of the Elk Valley Inn. If that was the case, Clint was torn between being happy for them and being slightly disappointed in the eminent failure of the next part of his plan.

He didn't have to wonder for long, though, as a sudden flurry of scraping came from behind him.

Clint carefully turned a page in his magazine, dutifully ignoring the clumsy approach and pretending to be absorbed in an advertisement for some opulent watch that was undoubtedly worth an entire furnished apartment unit. It wasn't long before he felt rather than heard the two figures scrambling along the ground below him. He couldn't quite keep the grin off of his face as the siblings' heads popped up on either side of him, their snickering giving them away long before they had even scaled the side.

"Mr. Nobody!"

Clint's grin was tainted with a dash of remorse at the insinuation, but the boy hardly noticed as he scrambled up to sit beside him and help his sister over the edge of the little wall. "In the flesh," he said, bowing dramatically from the waist as the kids sat heavily beside him. He eyed them critically, noticing the distinct lack of dirt on their skin and the softness of their hair. They had made it to the hotel, then. Something inside of him warmed slightly, and he quirked a sly grin as the boy beamed up at him, all suspicion from the night before long gone. The kid was speaking before he had even finished his greeting.

"You were right, Mr. Nobody! The door was open, and no one ever came in to check if we were there! I mean, people'd come through, but it wasn't hard to hide." He kicked his feet lightly, the heels of his worn sneakers thumping the wall now and again. "We slept on an actual couch, and we did just like you said with the lobby. They were real nice when my sister started almost cryin'." He grinned down at his little partner in crime, and she stuck her tongue out at him. He turned back to look up at Clint, who was watching their antics with thinly veiled amusement. "Told 'em it was a… a 'business trip' and everything, just like you said!"

Clint nodded appreciatively. "Did they ask you what room?"

The boy shook his head. "Nah, but they did get real busy looking through their big book at the desk for a while."

That caught the archer's attention. "What happened then? Did they kick you out?"

The boy shook his head in earnest again. "Oh, no, they were even nicer after that. They gave us some change to go to the cafe and get hot chocolate." His grin was ear to ear, and his face was such a drastically different picture than it had been the night before out by the dumpsters.

Huh.

How much one could change with just a little kindness.

Clint went over the words in his mind, his thoughts on what it was they had seen in the book drifting to the background as he addressed the boy again. "Did you have enough money for food, too?"

The boy gave a sheepish grin at that and shot a guilty glance to his sister. "I didn't get a hot chocolate, Mr. Nobody, I used my share to get Lucy her pancakes."

The fact that he let his sister's name slip seemed to not register with the boy, and Clint filed the information away for later. Lucy looked oblivious to the fact as well as she returned her brother's look with a solemn pat to the knee that looked much too official for a six year old girl.

Clint nodded purposefully then, standing from his spot and stretching his legs. He was pleasantly surprised to not feel the burn in his ribs as he had the day before. That either meant they were getting better, or they were getting worse. He preferred not to think about it. "Right. Stay here, ok? I'll be right back."

A few minutes later saw the boy happily scarfing down a cinnamon bagel and a small container of cream cheese while his sister looked on, a small container of tiny sticky buns clutched in her hands. Clint watched the boy eat, all too aware of the distinct lack of bills in his pocket. He'd have to get creative very soon if they were going to be needing more cash.

Deeming it as good a time as any to broach the subject, Clint leaned back against the building behind the wall as he addressed the two. "So do you know anyone in the city? Where's your family?"

The boy slowed down at that and eyed Clint critically, but a glance back down at the food in his and his sister's hands loosened his tongue. "Nah, no family. Used to live with granny in the house out of the city on the road in." Clint nodded sagely as if he had seen the cottage on his drive into the city from the main road. The fact they had come in from the back road didn't need to be mentioned.

The boy got quiet for a moment before continuing, his tone slightly more guarded than it had been before. "She died. Left me and Lucy on our own." He looked up at Clint, eyes bright. "They were gonna separate us, y'know. Wanted to send us away. So I grabbed Lucy and ran." He looked back down at his bagel. "Little more than a year ago, I think."

Clint listened carefully, and stared off into the empty street quietly when the boy finished. After a long stretch of silence, he spoke. "I get that."

The boy looked up, curiosity in his eyes. Clint inclined his head as his eyes slid down to meet the kid's. "I was a little younger than you. Ran off with my brother. We did alright for a while. Found people to take care of us. But we had to stop running at some point and let them." He eyed the kid pointedly, and the boy flushed slightly as he averted his gaze. Clint opened his mouth, but whatever he had to say next died on his tongue as he heard voices coming closer from down the street. The siblings looked up, panicked. Before Clint could say a word, they had hopped off of the wall and hunkered down on the other side, effectively out of sight from the sidewalk. Clint raised a brow before turning back to snag his magazine and peruse it as the voices got closer.

"— not sure if they're testing at that old base again out off of the main road. Did you hear the noise yesterday? They never know when to stop-"

"—nevermind the noise, it's the fact that they launch so close that bothers me. If they just had some form of -"

A couple linked arm in arm strut past, their conversation drifting over Clint as they dutifully ignored him and went on their merry way down the road towards the center of the city.

Clint snorted disdainfully, his expression practically dripping with disappointment. Of course there would be a base for testing just on the outskirts of the city. Why wouldn't there be? The universe already hated him enough as it was.

"You… okay, Mr. Nobody?"

The archer glanced down to see the boy staring up at him. In lieu of answering the question, he tilted his head. "We both know  _I_ have a name, and  _you_ have a name. And I can't just keep calling you 'kid' now, can I?" The boy looked uncertain for a moment before rolling his shoulders back and sticking out a crumb dusted hand.

"I'm Finn."

Clint shook his hand, a slight grin on his lips. "Short for something, Finn?"

The boy made a face then. "Finnigan." He shook his head and stared up at Clint expectantly. "So who're you?"

Clint thought for a moment before giving a lazy shrug, his mouth morphing into a deep yawn. "You already have a name for me, so what's the use of another?" Finn looked betrayed for a moment, but it thankfully appeared to be in jest.

"I gave you mine!"

Clint eased himself off of the wall and stepped back, making a show of thinking. He couldn't make this too easy for the boy to spot what he was trying to do. "I believe names hold power, Finn. They're given in exchange for… things."

Finn suddenly looked nervous as he regarded Clint through carefully blank eyes. "Like what sort of things?"

Clint leaned back against the wall, his magazine tucked under his arm. "Like… helpful sort of things. You gave me your name, and I gave you food and a place to stay. A fair exchange, yeah?"

Finn's expression cleared, and he looked slightly less wary. "Ok, I get it. So what kind of thing is  _your_ name worth, Mr. Nobody?"

The archer grinned, inwardly cheering. That had been significantly easier than he had been expecting it to be. "Well…you could tell me about your morning. How about the type of people you saw in that big hotel? The weird, the out of place, the fancy…"

Finn's brow furrowed, and if he noticed Lucy tugging on his sleeve, he ignored it. "That's all? I thought it'd be something cooler." Clint couldn't help the snort that escaped him as he laughed. Before either could say anything else, Lucy stuttered the first words Clint had heard her say.

"The leopard lady."

Clint and Finn looked at her as one, baffled expressions so alike it had Lucy giggling slightly. She continued haltingly. "She had a… a dress. Spotty. An' her hair looked like ears." Finn's eyes lit up with understanding then, and he nodded enthusiastically.

"Oh,  _her!_ Yeah, she was pretty weird. There was also this fat guy in a shirt with flowers all over it from somewhere in the States-"

And so the two went on, regaling Clint with stories of the occupants they had seen in the Elk Inn. "There was the crazy lady from the Leif cafe down the street for a while. They had to call security-"

"Some older guy didn't like that the breakfast ended so early. He was pretty mad-"

"Think I saw a fairy-"

"One guy was late for work-"

"The doorman kept staring-"

The archer listened carefully as the minutes ticked by, but none of the people they had seen seemed to match the description he was searching for. A simmering feeling of despair had slowly begun to take form in his gut, and he only hoped it didn't show on his face as the two rattled off the oddities and norms they had seen. That was, until…

"… and there was that rude guy, too. He didn't wanna leave his jacket at the front and the lady he was with made a real big stink about it."

Clint perked up at that, turning to address Finn and Lucy in full. "Oh yeah? What did they look like?" The siblings both puckered their faces in thought, and it was Lucy who spoke first.

"Boring."

Finn broke in there with a click of his tongue. "He was sorta tall. Wearin' what the people at granny's funeral looked like. All black and sad. And I remember his shoes were  _really_ weird." His little face furrowed. "They looked like snakes."

Before Clint could decode that little statement, Lucy chimed in, anxious to give her two cents.

"She was short and mean and loud. Pretty. Sparkly."

A thrill of adrenaline rushed through Clint then, and he felt his heart race a little faster as he tried to appear casual. "Sparkly, huh? Like diamonds? Or gold?"

Lucy hummed happily, her six year old mind enraptured by the image of shiny things. "Like gold!" She tossed her head then, her hair flapping in front of her eyes. She blew it away with a puff of her cheeks before her eyes zeroed in on the dark strands. Grabbing a lock of her own hair, she held it up for Clint to see. "She looked like me!"

It took a second for Clint to realize she was talking about her hair color, and when he did, the full weight of what she was saying slammed into him full force. He was silent for a long time as his mind raced furiously. They might have found them! They might still be here! Against all possible odds, somehow his split second, half baked plan had worked! There was still a chance to get back the case and fix this whole mess before it snowballed into something even worse than it had already created. The feeling of something tugging his sleeve had him glancing down into Finn's curious face.

"So what about your  _name,_ Mr. Nobody?"

Clint gave a rueful grin before ruffling the boy's hair lightly with the rolled up magazine. He pushed away from where he'd leaned against the wall then, shoving the magazine deep into his pockets. "What if I don't have a cool nickname like you and I don't like my name either?"

Finn stood up on the wall, his head on level ground with Clint's as he crossed his arms with a huff. "Too bad! You promised!"

Clint shook his head with a lopsided grin, his mind already elsewhere as he dimly figured he should avoid using his real name where it could easily slip out of their mouths at the wrong moment. His mind painfully supplied him with his brother's name last minute, and he reached out a hand for the siblings to shake.

"Nice to meet you, Finn and Lucy. I'm Barney."

He went on his way with the shrieks of laughter from his unknowing little cohorts following him down the street.

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Just a short heads up for all of you- I might not have internet access this Thursday, so I might have to post the chapter either earlier or later than usual. We'll see how it works out.
> 
> Until next time!


	7. Run, Boy, Run

* * *

"So… tell me, what are you doing again? And why on God's green earth do you need  _cosmetics?_  You look positively  _hideous_ , by the way."

Clint refused to break his concentration from the mirror as he dug a brittle piece of the motel's supplied cotton balls into the powder he had picked up from a small convenience store on the way back to the motel. He frowned slightly as he ran the substance over his face in it's natural shadows, lengthening his features and accentuating the stubble he had let grow for the day. "I need a name. I can't just waltz into the hotel and ask where the newest bookings are staying, it's too suspect. I need more information. And since you don't know the scientist's name-" he raised his voice to be heard over the doctor's sudden grumbling, "-then I'll need to find it out some other way. I grabbed a map from the front desk; there's a café across the street from the hotel. My guess is they won't want to be far from their home base in case they need to make a run for it. I'll run some surveillance. As for the cosmetics," he dug the cotton back into the little palette of browns and beiges, ignoring the puff of powder that spilled onto the counter as he did so. "He's seen my face before. He practically  _scoped_ me for that grenade stunt of his. I'd rather not be recognized before I can even get within ten feet of the guy."

Holden was leaning against the doorframe, his now dry slacks and jumper back on in place of his robe the night before. The doctor had an eyebrow quirked sardonically as he watched Clint sweep the last of the cheap makeup over his forehead. "And what do you plan on doing with this 'surveillance', exactly?"

Clint stopped his motions for a moment before returning to his task and tossing the now dark brown cotton ball into the cracked trash bin beside the sink. "Listen very closely."

The doctor stared balefully at him in the mirror. "You're joking."

Clint barely bat an eye as he ran a washcloth over his hair, the temporary tint of a deeper brown running into the sink in dark rivulets as the spray-in dye he had grudgingly bought rinsed out. "Who, me?"

"'Listen very closely'? That's your plan?"

"Yeah. What's your issue?"

"Well, it's not a very good plan. Particularly for you."

"Are you making fun of the deaf guy? Because it sounds to me like you're making fun of the deaf guy."

The doctor quirked his other brow at that, actual surprise registering on his face. "De— I wasn't even aware of that little fact until just now."

Clint paused in his ministrations briefly before shrugging and going back to work. "That's not the point. The point is, until I have a name, I can't do anything to intercept the sample."

"You're telling me that  _you_ , a top agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, an Avenger, an assassin, are  _deaf?_ "

Clint huffed in frustration before turning to address the doctor in full. He felt the sudden need to defend himself, and he drew his mouth into a taut line. "Not… completely, but yeah. I've got hearing aids though, and believe me when I say they're the best the country has to offer. Now if we're done here, I need to pick up a few more things before I head out."

Holden stumbled slightly as Clint brushed past him to snag his hat and pull it over the top of his head. "A few things? What things? And what do you expect me to do all day while you're out 'listening very closely'?" He made heavy quotes in the air with his fingers then, his entire frame practically bobbing with the amount of sarcastic effort he put into the motion.

Clint already had a hand on the doorknob when he turned back with a thoughtful expression. "I dunno, ask for another map at the front desk and look for a library or something."

"And go there?"

"Nah, just find it on the map and stare longingly at it for a while."

"Barton!"

"Hey, you're the one who insisted to stay out of sight. So stay out of sight." He paused for a moment, a sudden thought occurring to him as he dug into his pocket. "Actually… while you're hanging around, here," he said, tossing a significant chunk of change at the doctor, who fumbled to catch it. "Get a gas canister for the car. There's no way we were running on anything of actual substance on the way in, and I really don't want to get stuck with a burnt out tank if we need to make ourselves scarce. Happy?"

Holden glowered at him, the money shoved into the pockets of his pants. Clint didn't give him a chance to say anything before he turned to leave. He was halfway out the door when Holden's frazzled voice reached him again.

"What  _things?"_

Clint poked his head back through the doorway then with a grin, more for his benefit than the doctor's.

"It's laundry day."

The door had shut on one incredibly baffled doctor.

And so Clint found himself seated on a hard bench out front and to the far left of the little coffee shop, facing the enormous catastrophe of a building that was the Elk Valley Inn. He shifted slightly, the more convincing civilian clothing he had snagged with the last of his money from the thrift store down the road itching uncomfortably beneath the thick, generic workman's winter coat he had snagged from the motel's laundry room. There had been an outdoor seating area for a bustling restaurant a few turns down the block, and Clint had practically cheered his luck when he spied a solitary cellphone lying crookedly beside a dog eared paperback and a half eaten plate of panini at an empty table.

The decision had come to him quicker than he had realized, and with a quick glance around and deft flick of a hand from the pocket it had previously been shoved in, he had walked away with a new toy and a discreet crack of his knuckles. Now, he found himself adjusting the slightly bent wire frames of the eyeglasses he had tossed in last minute with the bundle of clothes at the thrift as he glared down at the little screen. A deliberate frown was plastered on his face as he tapped at the screen with all the urgency of a man highly inconvenienced, poking at nothing in particular and roving his eyes over the device until his gaze drifted lazily over the top of it at the sound of the doorman across the way greeting a new resident with a jovial shout.

Clint turned his head back to the stranger's phone when he saw the old woman the doorman was addressing, his fake frown deepening in genuine thought. So far, there had been no sign of the scientist and the deserter. The thought had briefly crossed his mind that Finn and Lucy might not have seen their targets at all, or they might have already left for wherever it was they were going, but he had quickly quashed it. If it truly was them the children had seen returning just that morning, then neither had apparently appeared to be in a frenzy to leave.

A chime from the phone in his hands had Clint glancing at the screen in earnest surprise, a bubble of text blinking up at him. He coughed to cover a snorting laugh at the amount of obscenities and accusations in the message, and it took a disappointingly enormous amount of will power to seriously resist the urge to respond with a "yeah, same to you, pal" reply of his own. Whatever the phone's owner had done to deserve the verbal beating they were getting from whoever this 'David' guy was was something Clint really didn't need to get involved with at the moment. He found himself flicking the screen to its settings menu, shutting off the GPS with a tap and thumbing on the device's airplane mode as he did so. His eyes drifted upwards again as he let loose a lip flapping gust of a sigh, his gaze riveted on the front door of the gaudy lodge inspired inn.

Maybe he  _had_  missed them.

And didn't that just suck to think about.

He wouldn't have a valid excuse for 'David' and the guy who's phone he stole if he couldn't stop the sample from being unleashed.

The half witted thought had only just crossed his mind when the doorman called out another greeting, and Clint glanced up from where his eyes had wandered once again, his gaze landing solidly on the form of a woman and her stocky companion striding briskly from the building, their faces set and sure. Clint held the phone up, squinting at it as if to try to read the screen better in the midday light. He watched them purposefully cross the street and hook a left down the road, their strides equally matched as they linked arms, the image of the perfect, happy couple out for a stroll.

The image would have been sold if their faces didn't seem so constipated.

Clint watched them carefully from the corner of his eye as they slowly made their way towards him, his peripherals picking up on the distinct familiarity of the woman's Armenian face immediately. As the two pulled up beside Clint to pass by the crowd lingering outside of the café, Clint's gaze darted to the man's shoes.

A scaly, flaking sort of material covering some serious business grade combat boots.

Like snakes, Finn had said.

Bingo.

He gave the duo a minute or so to walk well down the block and mingle within the crowd a bit before he stood slowly, removing the knit cap from his head and shoving it deep into the coat pocket as he did so. His eyes were trained solidly on their backs as they slowly worked their way through the controlled flow of the few workers out for the weekend. Clint felt another pang for his fortune when he realized it was indeed Saturday, meaning what little passerby's would have been on the street during the week was doubled, giving him a manageable amount of cover.

Straightening in full, Clint gripped the phone tightly in his hand, focusing his attention on it's screen and discovering a gait to match his image as he began to fluidly follow his targets, a loping, official sort of stride matching the stern businessman he had become. He kept well behind them, inching close enough to blend with other pedestrians but remain as within earshot as he could. They stopped at a crosswalk then and carefully settled into the crowd, a small group of individuals dutifully attempting to ignore each other as best they could.

The duo was entirely silent for a long while, and Clint was just starting to get antsy over whether or not he had been made when the man spoke. His voice was rough and throaty, and Clint couldn't quite keep the imperceptible roll his eyes gave. Of course the guy would sound like he'd swallowed a cheese grater, he only  _looked_ like a friggin' M1A2 tank. His dark, obviously new jacket was far too small across his shoulders, the material tugging tightly across his biceps and quite frankly looking just about ready to give in to it's fate and shred clean off. Whatever neck he might have had disappeared under the muscle bulging from over the collar of his coat. He seemed unperturbed by the few flakes that had drifted lazily downwards during the short stop, and the snow sat impaled on the cropped spikes of his buzzed hair. The guy practically  _screamed_  soldier.

All he was missing was the integrity.

His gruff words filtered slowly through Clint's brain as he got a read on his target.

"They should have called by now."

Clint tapped away at the screen to his phone, glancing up to glare pointedly at the signal as he glimpsed the scientist shooting a stony look to her companion. She spoke then, her own voice full of hard determination and purpose. There was a coldness to it that Clint dimly noted echoed Holden's voice a little too closely for comfort.

"They'll call when they're ready. You just need to be patient-"

"Patient?" The deserter interrupted with a hiss. "You want me to be patient? Do you not realize how much of a mess is left here? It's only a matter of time-"

He was silenced with a sharp heel on his instep courtesy of his compatriot as the signal flashed for them to walk, the crowd swarming across the road in a cluster of hurried footsteps and easy murmurs. Clint let himself be carried with the small crowd, his arms jostling left and right and wreaking absolute havoc on his ribs as he grit his teeth. He sucked in a sharp breath when a woman's purse bumped his left side, and he stared pointedly at her until she stammered a halfhearted apology before flittering off into some overpriced boutique. With a minute shake of his head, he turned back to his tailing. The duo had kept discussing their situation it seemed, and the man was in the middle of a sentence when Clint came back within range.

"—ey had the entire night to put something together, they should have just taken the damn thing with them! What was the point of them taking off so soon if they weren't even going to bring it with-"

He was interrupted harshly, an extra dose of ice in the scientist's voice. "They needed to prepare, Lucas, and you very well know that. This isn't exactly a cake we're delivering here, and with the demo man out of the picture, they need to pool our resources. You're just lucky they decided to leave you with it instead of taking you along with the others."

Clint's heart hammered suddenly at the woman's words. They still had the sample. Did he hear her right? Were there only two of them guarding it? No, that couldn't be. They wouldn't have just left the case unguarded in the hotel.

_Would they?_

There was another long silence as Clint belatedly realized the duo had stopped talking, an abrupt finality hovering over them. He became lost in the endless string of  _derr'mo, derr'mo, derr'mo, derr'moderr'moderr'mo_ that started running through his mind, some little piece of his consciousness rewinding through the last few seconds and desperately trying to find something that could have blown his tail. He found nothing, and as the duo slowed down to almost a complete stop, he found himself shutting the mantra of Russian swearing down in his head and morphing into full businessman mode.

Forcing down his urge to glance up from the phone, he continued walking, unsurprised to bump past the two as they stopped their pace entirely on the sidewalk. Ignoring the ignition in his chest at the movement, he shot a disgruntled glance to the man ( _Lucas,_ he strung into the mantra in his head) as he bumped shoulders and muttered something ambiguously annoyed. The defectors didn't even look at him. Rather, they were scrutinizing a menu outside of the outdoor restaurant Clint had already become acquainted with. He ducked his head and scooped the phone into his sleeve as he passed by. The table the phone's owner had sat at was cleared and the novel was missing, and he allowed himself to slow his pace, a slight twinge of guilt barely registering in his gut. It wasn't long before he was on the edge of striding out of ear shot of the duo.

Not that it mattered.

A grim, taught line of a smile pulled at his face. He had something to kick a plan of actual action into motion now. Even better, he had a chance of finding  _exactly_  what he needed unguarded and ripe for the picking.

With the thought in mind and when he was certain he was out of visual range, he slipped easily into an alley turnoff, pocketing the phone and taking off in a flat out sprint, the map he had analyzed earlier practically overlaying his vision as he began to circle back around to the hotel.

There was just enough of a timeframe to pull a snatch and grab while the defectors were at the restaurant.

He only hoped they decided to order dessert.

* * *

There was something about hotel hallways that always made Clint feel invincible.

He stopped in his tracks as the distant thought registered, and with a disbelieving shake of his head he continued his not-quite-run down the apparently never ending hallway of the Elk Valley Inn's (actually incredibly short) tenth floor. He wasn't sure if it was the feeling it gave of super speed when he ran, or the hyperawareness the muffled silence gave him; the knowledge of the hundreds of potential inhabitants just behind closed doors, one after the other and identical in every way, unsettling in just the right way to keep him alert. Whatever the cause, the quiet eeriness of an empty hotel hallway never failed to get to him.

Doors marked with charred wooden placards blurred past him as he sped towards the middle of the level, his eyes skimming the numbers in search for room 246. His eyes locked in on the number and the "Do Not Disturb" sign halfway down the hallway, and he dug his heels into the carpet abruptly, pulling up beside it and kneeling to inspect the lock. A quick glance to his left and right showed no one within the immediate area, so he fished around his jacket pocket for the general key card the maid would probably notice was missing within the next half hour and inform the receptionist, who would… well, who knew, really? She hadn't been the most helpful, anyways. Clint furrowed his brow as he inserted the key, shaking his head slightly at the memory.

Her hand had hovered uncertainly over the keyboard in front of her, her immaculate eyebrows raised in carefully measured surprise as she stared up at him, confusion in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, what did you say your name was again, sir?"

She had questioned him relentlessly, her disbelief much more obvious than she had probably intended.

Clint had drummed his fingers impatiently over the counter then, his face carefully exasperated. He puffed an aggravated sigh and glanced up from the stranger's pilfered phone he was staring at to shoot her a glance. "Rick. Rick Shermen, I'm here for a consultation with one of our associates."

She had flushed at the clipped annoyance in his tone, and Clint had found himself tapping his foot despite himself as she muttered a half hearted apology. A glance at the clock had told him twenty minutes had already passed since he left the restaurant. Confusing the receptionist for the room number had taken much longer than he had expected.

Maybe he should've gone with a more European based accent. God knew he'd heard enough Yorkshire in the last 24 hours to replicate it perfectly. He just had to dig deep and find the sense of affected entitlement the doctor seemed to hold.

His first choice had been Texan, and he had been highly regretting it as she scrutinized him. She had clasped her hands together, setting them lightly on the edge of her desk as she pursed her lips, her brain obviously trying to catch up with the conversation. "And who was it you were contacting, Mr. Shermen?"

Clint could practically  _feel_ the vein throbbing in his forehead. He had ignored it resolutely, choosing instead to tilt his head back, his gaze landing on the ceiling as he let out a disbelieving, humorless laugh. "How many times I gotta repeat myself, sweetheart? The room's under the name Lucas." He raised an impatient eyebrow, his eyes never leaving her face as her mask refused to drop. She had looked cooly back at him, although the slightest tinge of pink had appeared on her cheeks.

Damn.

Either she was a hard sell, or Clint was seriously beginning to lose his edge.

She had tapped away at her computer then, one hand planted on the giant book on the desk as the other hovered over the keyboard. She had shot him an annoyed glance of her own then, and Clint had blinked when she spoke.

"The last name. Mr. Shermen. The last name."

Clint barely paused as he scratched at the back of his head, his brow puckered. The perfect picture of the aggravated business partner. "I'm not sure how to pronounce it, really. Just met the guy yesterday. He checked in with the company yesterday morning. More like afternoon, really."

Her eyes had narrowed then as she turned her gaze away from Clint to scan the screen. She glanced up again, disbelief all over her face. " _Trescott?_ "

Clint snapped his fingers, shaking his pointing index finger a bit as he let dawning realization run over his face. "That's the one. Trescott. Got a room number for me?"

Apparently not, for the likes of him.

She had apologized then, telling him he was welcome to wait in the lobby for Lucas to fetch him. Clint had felt his brain practically implode at that. Was it really that difficult to hand over a number?

It had turned out that all it took to get on her good side was a dropped hint that he had worked in hotel services "back down home in the States." She'd been suspiciously interested, but the more he had talked, the more relaxed she had become. Clint had dropped the cold business front instantly and played off of the more personal side, making a mental note to avoid Texas accents at all cost in the future.

In the end, he had Lucas Trescott's full name, room number, and a room service all-purpose card key courtesy of one unsuspecting maid who left her trolley unattended in the hallway leading to the elevator.

And a couple of the little chocolate things they put on the pillows.

Guy's gotta eat.

Or something.

The lock opened with a satisfying  _chirp click,_  and Clint slid in easily, closing the door with his heel behind him as his eyes swept the room. After a short moment of scrutiny, he allowed himself to breath.

They really  _had_ left it unguarded.

_Why?_

An enormous window dominated the opposite wall, giving a truly breathtaking view of jack shit nothing. The night's storm had coated the plain in white, and the only view for several miles was the single plowed road leading into the city. Even that only appeared to be visible for a couple of miles before it dipped down and back over a hill. Clint turned his focus away from the window and stepped further into the room, his gaze scouring the floor. No detail went over his head: the thick laptop shut on the desk and the scanner wired into it, the grey fatigues stuffed haphazardly into the duffel in the corner, the semi automatic handgun barely concealed beneath the stack of maps and random paper pamphlets. The classic key-and-handle locked door to (and silence from) the bathroom. The click of the lock as Clint eased it open with a painfully bright pink paperclip. The empty countertop. The open ventilation window above the cabinets.

And the neon yellow and bullet aluminum case stamped "hazardous" balanced between two thick metal clamps in the bathtub.

He was acting before he even knew it, crouched over the tub and leaning this way and that to inspect the clamps. They appeared to be pressurized to hold the case steady and in place, and as Clint narrowed his eyes to look closer, he saw a thick sealant of some form attaching them to the porcelain of the tub.

Clint found himself staring dumbly at the sample for several drawn out moments before he mentally shook himself back to the present. They hadn't set up any visible defenses, and the odds of it being rigged seemed slim to none. It was too delicate an item to set potentially dangerous hazards around.

At least, he hoped so.

After a second's hesitation, Clint brushed his fingertips lightly over the metal, pulling them away with a sharp jolt as soon as they came in contact. A few dead silent moments later saw no actual consequences for touching the metal, and Clint found himself quickly dipping his hands back into the dry tub to fiddle with the clamps. His fingers ran over a sudden divot in the back of the base of the clamp, and he rocked forward to stand on his toes as he peered over the side of the device for a better view. A small hole roughly the size of a quarter was dug into the metal in the side of the claw, an odd texture of overlapping gears and complicated circles running through the center of it. His brow furrowed as he ran his finger over the same spot in the other clamp and found no divot to match. With a flick of his wrist, he snatched the paperclip he had bent into a crude lock pick and prodded lightly at the gears, freezing as a series of clicks emitted from the clamps.

The sound was the only threat, it appeared, as nothing happened that Clint could see. With a disgruntled huff through his nose, he leaned forward further, gripping the arms of one clamp in a sturdy lock before pulling with a short, jabbing motion.

It didn't budge.

He pulled harder, teeth grit and foot planted against the wall as he strained against the device. His grip slipped as his chest flared in dull sensation from the exertion, and he let go with a gasp. The clamp hadn't shifted a single centimeter.

Clint rocked back onto his heels with a wheeze as his chest throbbed, his eyes narrowed critically as he surveyed the device. So much for leaving it unguarded. They hardly needed to post a guard on something practically bolted to the floor. If the case was going to be going anywhere, the hole that Clint assumed was a pressurized locking device of some sort would have to be addressed. And it certainly wouldn't be addressed with just a cheap gas station paperclip.

It had to have a key.

Even though he highly doubted the key would still be in the room as opposed to being on Lucas' person, Clint straightened purposefully to search the room. There was always a chance, and he had no margin for error. He either left with the case, or he didn't leave at all.

The thought no sooner crossed his mind when he froze at the bathroom door. There were voices in the hallway outside, murmuring incoherently as they drew closer.

Clint silently cursed the universe.

He hadn't really meant he needed the challenge when he decided he wasn't leaving without it!

Clint held his breath, ears straining desperately to follow the location of the voices. The noise gradually peaked what sounded like a few doors down, just before the deserter's room. There was an uneasy silence then that stretched on second after second. Clint could feel his muscles tensed, the knuckles on his hand on the bathroom doorknob bleached white from where they were clenched. There was silence.

Silence.

And more silence.

Clint allowed himself to breath, his hand unclenching slowly.

A cheery chirp and click from the front lock was all the warning he had before Lucas shoved the door open.

The bathroom door shut faster than Clint had thought possible as the archer pulled back abruptly, and he threw the little lock with silent force, his body coiled in full defensive mode as he backed away from the door. Lucas and the scientist's voices drifted through the wood in a muffled mess, their conversation hushed despite their supposed privacy. Neither gave any signs that they knew they had been breached, and Clint felt his eyes flickering throughout the bathroom in search of an improvised weapon.

They appeared to be arguing.

"—saying that I don't feel comfortable carting this out of the country in the state it's in. Do you really think it could get past customs?"

There was a disgusted snort from the scientist. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Might've gone over your head, Doctor Petrosyan, but I'm not really the  _joking_ type."

There was an incomprehensible mutter then followed by the scientist (Clint mentally red flagged her name) continuing. "Do you really think we're taking this thing through customs? What do you think this phone call is for, exactly? I already  _told_ you, they're preparing for it, that's why we've been waiting so long!"

"That's what  _worries_ me! It's taking them too long to be reliable! You can't honestly tell me you're one hundred percent okay with this right now-"

Clint filed away the tidbit of information for later as the argument continued outside, his mind racing in time with his heart as he scanned the counters, nothing of any potential use sticking out to him. His eyes fell on the window above the cabinets, and a sudden, wild thought occurred to him that had him mentally cringing at his own stupidity. Lucas' voice suddenly came closer to the door, and over the grating of his tone Clint could hear the distinct sound of pocket change and other metallic objects being rifled through.

He shot a glance between the door and the window. He needed the case. But he also needed information on who else wanted it. He could take Lucas out, but in such close quarters and with the knowledge that the man was armed while he personally wasn't tilted the odds just enough to have him searching for a plan B.

A key clicked into the lock, the handle jiggling slightly as Lucas shifted the object from the outside.

Clint was already scaling the cabinet, his feet sliding silently over the clouded metal of the handles.

The knob turned.

Clint gripped the upper frame of the window, a voice sounding suspiciously like Stark's resounding in his head with a sardonic  _you're a moron_.

The door creaked open, Lucas' voice coming through clear as he stepped into the bathroom.

And Clint flung himself smoothly out the window of the tenth floor of the Elk Valley Inn.

* * *

 


	8. Last Action Hero Clint Barton

* * *

 

Standing at twenty floors and easily seventy meters, the Elk Valley Inn was one of the only three high rises in Etford.

As Clint stared down from his suspended point dangling halfway up the building, he found himself readily willing to take back what he had said about the building being "pathetic" in any way.

There had been a brief second of weightlessness as Clint's body slid easily though the window and dangled high over the edge of the building, his legs twisting in midair as they began their descent. He had spun frantically at the last possible second, his fingers scrabbling for a handhold on the bottom of the window ledge. They found their purchase just before his body came in contact with the wall. Luckily for him, he had just enough sense of self to muffle the collision as best he could with the momentum.

Unluckily for him, his torso took the brunt of the hit.

Stars had exploded in his vision, and with a grit jaw he clenched his eyes shut tightly as a slow spread of agony burst from his ribs, the pain throbbing in time with the swing of his dangling body. He breathed heavily through the shock, forcing himself to open his eyes and fully asses his situation. He stared up at his clenched fingers and their wedged position just under the window sill before swiveling his head slightly to look down.

Well then.

That was pretty damn high.

The area appeared to be the service side of the hotel, all ugly brickwork and the occasional venting window along the wall. The hotel's dumpster site was just around the corner he was dangling from, and a partially fenced off section of a crumbled building with old, rusted signs reading "CONDEMNED" ran just behind him, creating an almost nonexistent alleyway between the two. A tall, spindly evergreen tree of some sort wove it's way up between the two buildings, long wooden vines sprawling from it's tall branches and firmly attaching themselves to the walls of the hotel.

Clint blinked at the height, and for a moment he wasn't so sure if this counted as his luck being in his favor or going back to kicking him in the shin.

He turned his attention back to his hands, resolutely forgetting the height as he adjusted his feet, boots searching for a solid toehold in the cracked brickwork of the back of the old hotel. It took a moment for him to realize he was practically biting through his tongue as his chest throbbed again with a vengeance, and he unclenched his jaw purposefully as his feet scrabbled for a crack. Once he levered some of his weight off of his fingers, he lifted himself up ever so slightly, the pressure that had been building in his arms and fingers subsiding just enough to stop the strained spasm his wrists had started to take up.

Evening his breathing as he mentally took stock of himself, Clint forced himself to strain his ears for the conversation still taking place inside. He flattened his body against the bricks as a frigid gust of wind buffeted the side of the building, the wet chill it brought causing his fingers to clench painfully despite themselves.

After a long moment of listening, he belatedly realized the conversation had actually stopped. There was a rustling sort of noise barely audible over the whistle of the wind, and Clint couldn't quite keep his eyes from rolling as even that was lost to the noise from the building.

Maybe this hadn't been such a good plan.

But, really.

He'd known it wasn't, but what kind of agent was he if he didn't at least pretend to have a better plan?

He gave himself another three seconds to regain his composure before he shifted his weight back onto his fingertips, gingerly lifting his right foot and bringing it to an abrupt stop in a crack higher than the one it had rested on before. With his shoe solidly in place, he puffed a breath out and heaved himself up higher, his head dipping past the side of the window and bringing his torso level with it as his left shoe toed the bricks for a foothold. Pressing his cheek to the wall beside the window, he inhaled sharply as he edged even closer, the lack of sound inside causing his stomach to twist uncertainly. Had he not gotten out in time? Was Lucas going for his gun?

The sudden harsh ringing of a phone startled him, and his shoe slipped from it's foothold as he scrambled to regain his equilibrium as Lucas' blunt "took you long enough" spilled out the window. Clint shoved his toe back into the wall, digging his boot in until a dull ache settled on his toes. He lowered his head slightly, ears peeled as the phone conversation continued.

"— been ready this whole time, sir. All due respect, but the delay came from  _your_ side."

Silence. Then, he continued, his voice carefully in check. "Understood, sir. Is the package en route?"

Clint narrowed his eyes, adjusting his grip to shake the feeling back into his left hand as Lucas listened to the caller's reply. Package? Did they have a decoy set? Or was it something else? Lucas' voice drifted through again, quieter this time, as if he had walked back into the main bedroom.

"I understand. I'll meet him in the lobby. When will he be here?"

Clint shifted again, refusing to acknowledge the minute shiver that was slowly beginning to run up his arms as he leaned even closer to the window.  _Say when, say when, say when, say when…_

"I'll be there. We'll be underway just as soon as it's delivered."

_Damn it._

The sound of a door closing and a long minute of silence had Clint shutting his eyes in frustration.

Was it too much to ask for things to be easy for him at least once?

Setting his pity party aside roughly, Clint huffed a couple of preparatory breaths before readjusting his grip again, bringing his head lower to peer cautiously through the window. Sure enough, the room was empty. He stared balefully at the sample as he weighed his options

He couldn't leave without it.

And he couldn't leave with it.

But he had to figure out what this "other package" was as well, and the only way to do that was to get down to the lobby and observe the exchange. The exchange that was happening God-knew-when.

An enormous gust of wind practically rattled his brain in his skull as he flattened himself further against the building, the freezing sweat that had broken out on his brow at some point suddenly very prominent to his senses.

Oh yeah. He had to climb ten stories too, apparently.

Sometimes he wondered when this had become his lifestyle of choice.

His fingers shot a fierce ache through his hands then, and he decided on his course of action much faster than he would have liked to as his feet chose that moment to slide out from the cracks in the wall and he lost his grip.

Looked like he was going down.

A heart stopping five, ten, fifteen feet rushed past him as he slammed his palms against the building, his fingers splayed like claws as they ran over the brittle bricks. It was all he could do to keep himself upright and not flip into a hundred foot nosedive straight to a frankly unpleasant lesson on physics. He swiveled his head with a gasp as he continued his unconventional slide down the wall, the stinging in his palms as the bricks sliced into them hardly registering as he desperately searched for a foothold. He didn't need to find one, as it turned out. His body had already begun to fall away from the side of the building when his rigid fingers slammed into a crevice, and he gripped it like the lifeline it had so quickly become.

His descent came to an abrupt, bone rattling halt, and he couldn't keep the barely muffled shout of pain from exploding out of his mouth as his body's weight jarred unforgivingly at his shoulders. His knees rammed into the wall as his feet caught up with the momentum, and a strained grunt followed shortly on tail of the yell as they bounced back, his shoes scrabbling for purchase as his arms shook. Pressing the sole of his shoe against the surface, he frantically wedged the toe of his other boot into the tiny crack above one of the many loose bricks littering the wall. Clint pushed off of the foothold as soon as he was certain it would hold, and a gasp of relief fell from his mouth when the weight was taken off of his shoulders and knuckles. Gingerly, he removed his right hand, shaking away the cramps as best he could and examining his gouged, bleeding palms in exasperation.

Had he ever asked S.H.I.E.L.D for workers compensation? He'd have to have Fury consider it. A flutter of manic amusement rapidly crossed his mind at the thought before evaporating as the harsh reality of the situation doused him, the sweat of exertion on his brow becoming all too noticeable to him.

There was no S.H.I.E.L.D. And he had to get his sorry hide to the lobby or there'd likely be no escape.

With an enormous breath, he looked down to assess his options. There was still a stretching distance of roughly twenty meters beneath him, the height warping the perspective and making the building appear to curve in on itself. Clint narrowed his eyes as he breathed raggedly, the wind pulling at his clothing as he stared at the ground far, way too far below. A twinge of something itched at his insides, and although he refused to acknowledge it, he knew very well what the feeling was.

Stone cold dread.

He would never survive a fall from this height, and there was a zero percent chance of the snow or dumpsters cushioning him any without causing some serious damage. So, he did what he could.

He began to climb.

Slowly, incredibly slowly, he unwedged his foot, levering himself downwards with a clenched jaw and a heaving chest as he panted from the exertion. The handholds became easier to find the lower he got, and he soon fell into an almost hypnotic rhythm as he descended the wall at an agonizingly slow pace.

Foot. Prod, wedge. Other foot. Prod, wedge. Right hand. Wipe the blood on the jacket. Find a crevice. Left hand. Wipe the blood. Wedge. Repeat.

5 meters passed and his palms were on fire. 10 meters passed and he couldn't feel his face as the wind whipped through relentlessly. It was too slow,  _too slow_ , and he could feel the strength in his arms wavering as he found a new handhold. A quick glance down informed him he was closer to the ground, albeit not by much. His eyes shut tightly on their own accord as a mixture of frustration and fury swarmed his senses.

He was so close,  _so close!_ He couldn't afford to let a stupid decision like this prevent him from completing the mission!

Another meter or two passed before he slipped for the third time in who-knew-how-many-minutes. This time, as he scrabbled for purchase, he was convinced there would be no recovering. His hands burned and his fingers locked and his feet skidded and his momentum tilted and oh  _God,_ he was going to die from falling off of a stupid building on his own stupid call and no one would ever know.

Stark would've had a field day with the bird puns if he ever knew.

Clint dropped like a stone, his hands falling away from the building at an alarming speed as the wind whistled past his ears in a shrieking blast of terrifying force. He watched in growing horror as the bricks drifted out of his reach as his momentum carried him away from the wall, and he reached desperately for some sort of handhold. The tips of his fingers just barely brushed the brick before his right toe jammed solidly against a protruding block, sending an excruciating pain shooting up his shin and flipping his body fully away from the wall, his elbows slamming into his torso as he spun out of control. His heart thundered in his ribcage, the adrenaline coursing through his veins as he was forced to turn in midair and see his impending death straight on as he free fell.

So of course he shut his eyes like the resigned coward he was.

For not so obvious reasons, that had been a  _horrible_ move.

His free fall came to a much quicker halt than he had expected as a resounding  _crack_ filled his ears and his descent slowed jarringly. Pain lanced through every nerve in his body, and his eyes flew open as he gasped from the sudden sensation of something surrounding him as he fell, his momentum slowing just barely perceptibly. His vision was swamped with browns and greens, and the constant crunch and splintering feeling running along his limbs had his brain kicking itself back into gear as he flung his hands out to grab the closest thing he saw. His fingers closed steadily around a thick bough of wood, and his descent stopped as his body swung beneath the limb, flipping almost entirely around it before settling back to dangle haphazardly. Clint could only stare at nothing for a long minute with his arm quaking while his heart slowed and he realized what had happened.

The tree.

He had fallen into the tree.

It was right then and there that he decided the Clint Barton luck was horribly, h _orribly_  inept at presenting itself.

With a grunt of exertion, he swung himself closer to the thick trunk of the tree, his feet groping for the bark as he lifted his dangling, burning arm to join the other on the branch above. The bark dug agonizingly into his shredded hands, and he bit his lip to keep from crying out as the torn skin flared with a vengeance. He found a sturdy bough below him with his feet, and with a final swing, he plopped neatly down onto it, his back ramming against the trunk as his hands gripped the branch and his ankles locked beneath it to keep from slipping off.

He was stable.

He was alive.

Sweet baby  _Jesus,_ how was he  _alive?_

Clint found himself blinking furiously as his mind refused to leave its numb state, his shocked stare directed down at the shredded hands wrapped tightly around the limb. He was alive. He had just fallen from a forty meter height and somehow managed not to shatter every bone in his body on impact. The thought dimly crossed his mind to take stock of his injuries, but he shook himself out of the reverie instantly as another thought occurred to him.

_Get the sample. Get the case._

Snapping out of his haze of heart thumping relief, he inspected the limbs below him carefully, mapping out a route down from the relative safety of his perch. A wild, undoubtedly manic grin spread across his face as he shifted his position in preparation to climb.

Buildings were one thing.

Now,  _trees_ , on the other hand, were practically his specialty.

Trees he could work with.

The next few minutes passed in a blur of motion: hand over hand, foot over foot, a swing here, a drop there, ignore the pain. Pain is a message. Messages can be ignored. Ignore it. Ignore it. Ignore it.

He found himself chanting his old mantra out loud at some point and shut his mouth with a resolute click.

In seemingly no time at all, the branches became thicker, and the ground was roughly three meters away from his position in the tree. He swung out from the bottom branch clumsily, his hand catching on a rough patch of bark and releasing out of pure primal instinct. He dropped the rest of the way and landed in a solid heap in the drifted snow against the tree's trunk.

He stared vacantly at the building not three meters from his crumpled position, his eyes unseeing as he gasped in a breath.

That worker's compensation idea wasn't sounding too insane right about now.

He sat like that for a while, his eyes blown wide and his breathing deep and haggard as he regained what composure he could. Tilting his head back to rest against the tree for a moment, he closed his eyes briefly, sucking in a deep breath and releasing it in a swift explosion of an exhale as his chest spasmed with a sharp ache. His eyes flew open as he mentally locked away the pain. Mission first, pain later. Mission first, pain later. Mission first, pain _later._

He spared a second to scrutinize his shredded hands, his face puckering at the gruesome sight. The palms were a bloody mess, rough splinters and flecks of crumbled shale embedded deep into the cuts. Clint swore under his breath. That was problematic. He glanced around him and dug his hands deep into the snow before he could think better of it, the frigid cold seeping into his skin and slowly numbing the pain as he scrubbed at the wounds, rinsing away the debris and blood as best he could shortly before dropping the crimson hunks of snow. He turned his attention quickly away from the russet stained ground, the image of Neil's unseeing eyes and twisted scar suddenly jumping vividly to the forefront of his imagination.

With an enormous amount of will power, he forced himself to stand, his elbows bracing him against the tree trunk as he did so. He vaguely made a mental note of the pain in his left shin and ankle before filing it away alongside the others.

He had a job to finish.

Pushing himself away from the tree wasn't quite as difficult as he thought, and as he made his way through the snow towards the corner of the building, he reached into his coat pockets to conceal the mess of his hands. He glanced down at his jacket, only hoping the dark color would conceal the smears he had made while climbing. His hand brushed something soft in his right pocket, and he pulled it out before realizing what it was. Recognizing his hat, he jammed it tightly over his ears as he rounded the corner, the street coming into view as he gingerly curled his hands back into his pockets.

The glass windows that made up the front of the lobby of the Elk Valley Inn gave him a perfect view of the sitting area as he moved casually into the foot traffic (and ignored the frankly alarmed glances he got. He hoped his face wasn't as battered as it felt.). He froze, however, when he got a clear view of the front door.

Lucas was out front of the building, a sealed envelope clasped in his hand and a stern expression on his face as he addressed the stout man who had apparently given it to him. The two exchanged words briefly, and Clint merged silently into a group of passerby, keeping his head down as he slowly eased his way past the two.

The effort was in vain, as Lucas spun on his heel and shoved the door open himself, much to the chagrin of the doorman. The contact turned and crossed the street as well, slipping easily into a nondescript black four-door.  _Always with the tinted windows_ , Clint thought to himself bitterly as the car sped off down the main stretch.

He turned his attention back to Lucas, who had made it halfway to the elevator banks already. The envelope was open in his hands, and a metallic cylinder of sorts was clasped tightly in his grip. Clint narrowed his eyes as he stared at the cylinder.

It was roughly the diameter of a quarter sized hole.

A very specific, very inconvenient, and apparently very-much-so-a-lock quarter sized hole.

Clint turned his focus away, a string of harsh swears running through his mind as Lucas boarded the elevator and turned to face forward.

He waited just long enough for the doors to close before he took off at a full tilt sprint toward the motel, shoving any unfortunate pedestrians in his way to the side as he did so.

They had one chance left at intercepting this thing, and this time, he wasn't planning on leaving empty handed.

* * *

 


	9. Return to Sender

* * *

 

The door to the motel unit burst open with a dangerously unstable racket, and a steely faced Clint strode into the room as the door slammed against the wall behind him. The doctor squawked in alarm at the sound, a stack of thickly folded papers on his lap spilling onto the floor as he fumbled to find his feet. The image of him standing beside the bed with his glasses skewed and the lamp from the end table tightly held in his hands dimly filtered through Clint's mind as he sped further into the room.

"Barton? Why the— you gave me a heart attack, you moron!"

He stopped abruptly as his eyes roved over Clint's features, his face puckering in a frankly humorous degree of shock. "What the hell happened to you? Where did all those cuts come from? And…  _God's sake,_ what happened to your  _hands_?" He was moving forward, professional stoniness overtaking any concern that might have been on a normal human being's face, Clint noted wryly.

The archer ignored him as he strode into the bathroom, twisting the faucet on full and thrusting his hands underneath the spluttering flow of water. He hissed sharply at the instant sting and watched with growing impatience as the sink bowl ran a gruesome shade of rust, reds and browns mixing from the dirt and blood. A glimpse in the mirror showed a series of thin, jagged scrapes running across his face, and he frowned at a thin rivulet of red running across his eyebrow. When he was satisfied he had gotten as much surface grime out of the gashes as he could, he splashed a shockingly cold handful of water across his face before spinning back to glance at the bewildered doctor. He turned his attention rapidly back onto the wall, grabbing the thin washcloths hanging from the towel rack as he did so and wrapping them tightly around his hands. With a blunt jab of his elbow, he moved Holden aside as he darted purposefully to the bed and grabbed his bag, throwing what little things were scattered outside of it back into it's interior. He snapped over his shoulder to the doctor as he snatched his bow and quiver up in their blanket.

"Grab your things, we're leaving. Please tell me you gassed up the car."

Holden started in surprise at that, and he spluttered in confusion as Clint tied off the washcloths to his palms with the help of his teeth.

"What,  _now_? And of course I bloody well gassed the car, what else was I going to do? I mean, aside from grab every map of the area from the station like you so helpfully suggested," he finished bitterly, his hands already scrabbling to gather up the spilled maps and papers.

Clint hefted his bag over his shoulder, his bow held gingerly in the crook of his elbow as he walked past the doctor, who was thankfully already in the process of fumbling for his coat. "Yes,  _now._ They're going to be leaving the city soon. By car. We need to intercept them."

He could feel Holden staring at the back of his head as he fumbled with the door knob. "You learned that from them at a café? They don't seem very careful, going and discussing something like that in public-"

"I didn't hear it at the café, I heard it outside of their window at the hotel." He paused for a moment as he opened the door. "On the tenth floor."

He would be lying if he didn't take a moment of indulgent amusement from the doctor's flabbergasted expression when he turned to usher him through the door. "The windo- th-ten- the ten-fl- the  _what?_ You were outside their window on the  _tenth floor?"_

"Look, I will  _gladly_ fill you in on my day once we're en route, but for the moment, we need to  _move."_  Clint stepped into the hallway, his mind already racing with the barest beginnings of a plan.

Holden stumbled out the door behind Clint as he ushered the agitated doctor out of the room. "Where are we intercepting them? The parking lot?"

Clint felt his lip twitch in exasperation as he shut the door with a slam. "Too many witnesses. I don't want any casualties involved here that we could have avoided. We're going to stop them on the road."

"And how do you propose we do that? We hardly have the equipment for a blockade-"

"We've got more than enough, now would you just  _move?"_  Clint said through gritted teeth. He practically propelled the doctor down the stairs and out the front door, ignoring the curious look from the desk manager as he slapped the room key onto the front desk in passing without a word.

They wrenched open the doors to the Civic, the doctor tossing their supplies onto the floor in the back seat and flopping the maps across the dashboard while Clint got to fumbling work on the ignition, his sliced fingers stinging as they skimmed over the wires. Despite the pain, Clint had it wired in record time, and he practically burnt the tires out as he floored the pedal, screeching onto the street. He was already tearing down the main road out of Etford when Holden spoke up again, his accent considerably thicker in it's strain.

"How do you know what they're driving? And how do you plan on stopping them? This is the main road into the city, there'll be other people-"

"Look around you, doc. How many other cars do you see right now?"

It was true, there was only one other car on the long road leading out to what would eventually become Toronto. Clint grit his teeth as he floored the pedal, praying the old engine wouldn't give out on them before they were ready. The doctor was uncharacteristically silent as they sped past the mile markers.

Seven miles out from the city and the car steered down the slight incline Clint had noticed from the defector's hotel room.

Eight miles and they were out of sight from the city.

Nine miles.

Ten miles.

Eleven miles.

At the twelfth post, he spun the wheel suddenly, veering them across the slick road and into the opposite lane, positioning the car to face back towards the city before hitting the brakes and coming to a standstill.

Holden was understandably confused.

"What… what are you doing? Are you planning on running them off the road?"

Clint shook his head as he glanced in the clouded mirrors. The other car was well out of sight by now, and none appeared to be coming in either direction as far as he could tell. "No, there's too much maneuvering room for that. They could just take off before we get to them."

"Then how the  _hell_ are you planning on stopping them?"

Clint shot him an incredulous glance, his mouth a grim line.

Something seemed to click in Holden's brain as his head swiveled back and forth, his gaze turning from the bare road to Clint and back again. "You're… what, you're going to play  _chicken?_ Please tell me you actually  _are_ joking this time!"

Clint spared him another glance out the corner of his eye. "I would've thought you'd pick up on the fact that I don't seem to joke as much as you think I do when it comes to plans. And no, I'm not planning on playing chicken," he continued briskly when he saw the doctor opening his mouth, his eyes wide in impending terror. "We won't get close enough for a collision. I  _am_ going to need you to do exactly what I say, though, you got that?"

At the doctor's belated nod, he inhaled deeply, pushing past the pain still throbbing in his core. "Good. Hop in the back seat real fast and cover yourself as best you can with the blanket. And hand me my gun, too. It's in the outer pocket of the bag."

After a second of maneuvering on the doctor's part, Holden was marginally covered on the back seat and Clint's pistol was on the seat next to him. He narrowed his eyes as he focused on the road again, his heart beginning to slow as he mentally prepared himself for the moment that was inevitably coming soon. "Ok, I'm going to need you to stay down, no matter what you hear. Don't move unless I explicitly tell you to, got it?"

The muffled affirmation that came from under the blanket was all Clint had to go off of for now, and he inclined his head slightly as he scanned the horizon. A twinge ran through him as he realized just how fast his heart was hammering suddenly, and he inhaled in slight surprise. Why was he so jumpy? He'd pulled this move millions of times in the past. What was causing his body to react so spastically?

A throb of pain ran through him with a suddenness that left him reeling, and he clutched at the steering wheel a little tighter as he rode it out, a short, ragged gasp the only indication of the impromptu ache.

Oh.

That was why.

There was a muffled shuffling from the back seat then, and Holden's cautious voice followed suit.

"Barton?"

Clint shook himself out of his haze, forcing the pain back into its mental box as he addressed the doctor gruffly. "Fine. 'M fine. Just stay down."

There was a note of grudging incredulity in the doctor's voice when he spoke again. "You know, I don't appreciate being lied to when it's  _both_ of our lives at risk if you're not… fully aware-"

"I'm  _fine_ , I'm completely aware, just… just give me a second."

The silence lasted all of four.

"Were you?"

Clint focused past breathing through the last of the waves of prickling pain, his tone suitably confused. "Was I what?"

"Aware?"

It took too long for Clint to realize just what it was the doctor was insinuating.

When the penny dropped, it rammed straight through the floor.

Clint let his head drop back against the headrest as a low, humorless huff of a laugh escaped him, and he shook his head in disbelief as he darted his eyes away from the windshield to glance back at his companion.

"Oh,  _man_ , you just never quit, do you?"

Holden stared pensively back, the obvious threat of Clint simply bashing his skull in then and there clearly battling to outweigh the man's professional curiosity. He didn't answer as he shifted his gaze away.

Several minutes passed in tense silence as Clint refocused on the empty road, and then-

"You might want to hang on to something, doc, things are about to get dicey."

Clint slammed down on the gas pedal, startling the doctor into giving a shout as he flew back against the seat. The Civic thrummed unhappily as the tires screeched over black ice, and Clint redlined it towards the solitary car making it's way towards them from the city. He narrowed his eyes as he hovered his hand over the gun on the seat next to him, his eyes skipping between the mile markers and the car speeding closer with what he only hoped was the sample.

Four miles between them.

Three miles.

Two miles.

One mile and he could see the outline of a thick necked man driving with a wiry, long haired woman in the passenger seat.

Clint gripped the wheel with both hands and turned harshly to the left, then to the right, then back again, causing the old car to swerve uncontrollably across both icy lanes of the road. Skidding dangerously back into the right lane and almost off of the pavement on two tires, he gave the wheel one last, almighty pull and spun out across the lanes, coming to a screeching stop in the middle of the road barely fifteen feet in front of the traitors' car, effectively blocking the highway. He let loose a loud, inarticulate scream as he did so, and as the car came to a horribly noisy stop on the ice, he slumped over the wheel with his face turned towards the driver side window in the opposite direction of the car he only hoped would stop in time. He had positioned the car as best he could, and if he had landed where he had hoped to, there would be no going around the sedan without some show of force.

He only hoped Lucas didn't decide to just ram them and be done with it.

His hand found the pistol on his seat, and he gripped it as solidly as he could around the makeshift bandage coating his hand. With that, he clenched his eyes shut and began praying to whatever god was out there that the damn dream team would investigate.

An unnerving few seconds passed before he heard the slam of a car door.

The sound of hurried footsteps on the slippery road reached his ears through the open windows, and he heard a muffled "what the devil" through the passenger side window that gave away just who had come running.

It was Lucas.

The thumping of his footfalls on the pavement moved around the car to the drive's side, and the man's throaty voice came through the cracked window. "What the hell was that? You drunk or something?" When he saw Clint, covered in nicks and cuts and thin rivulets of blood running down his face (and for all appearances passed out over the wheel), he reached for the door, wrenching it easily open.

And boy, did it put a damper on his day to see the pistol aimed right at his goods.

Clint's eyes popped open at the sound of strangled surprise from Lucas, and he lifted both the gun and his head simultaneously. "Ah, let's not," he said as Lucas darted a glance to the other car. "Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise would you?" Clint gave a lightning quick glance to the other car, noting the agitated expression on Doctor Petrosyan's face in the passenger seat. Turning his attention back to Lucas, he spoke up.

"Doctor Holden, if you would please go get your sample so we could be done with this mess, it would be  _much_  appreciated."

Lucas' eyes bugged at the statement, and the man laughed in utter disbelief. "Holden? Doctor Holden? Who the hell do you think you are? He's dead, pal! We got the whole unit!"

The doctor chose that moment to pop his head out from beneath the blanket in the back, a shit eating grin plastered all over his ecstatic face. "Did they? Well, that's odd, I feel pretty good for a dead man."

Lucas just about lost it.

"Ah, ah, ah," Clint reproached when the man took a step forward, waving the pistol slightly for emphasis. "Stay right there, 'pal'. Doctor Holden, the sample, if you please. And let our friend over there know that she should join the party; she's missing out on the fun."

Holden slipped out the opposite door, and Clint couldn't help the glance he threw out the passenger side window. The scientist's face was slack with shock as she realized who it was walking towards her, and as she started scrabbling for the driver's seat, Holden broke into a sprint, reaching the car before she could so much as unbuckle her seatbelt. The doctor's smug "now really, darling" carried over the distance easily, but the rest of the conversation was lost to the road.

Clint stepped out of the car then, motioning with his gun for Lucas to step around to the trunk. The man glared absolute daggers at him, and Clint stared impassively back as he smothered any and all urges to wince at the sudden shooting pain in his foot. He spoke just as much to distract himself as to mess with the man in front of him.

"What, you got something to say?"

He paused just long enough for the man to open his mouth before he continued.

"Good, keep it that way."

He motioned for the space just beside the trunk as Lucas spat a vehement curse at him. Keeping his gaze trained on the steely deserter, Clint popped the trunk open before stepping back and staring solidly at his hostage. The click of heels and the crunch of ice accompanied by a colorful string of Armenian curses announced the presence of the scientist and Doctor Holden. Holden gave Lucas a wide berth, and his face positively shone in its smugness as he clutched the hideous case holding the precious sample to his chest. Doctor Petrosyan stepped up beside her companion, a scowl on her face as she stared at the pistol in Clint's hand. He rolled his shoulders slightly, the relief of the stunt working threatening to crash on him before he was prepared for it.

"Right," he started, "Doctor Holden, put the sample in the front seat. Then come back and help me with these two."

The doctor nodded sharply before scurrying to offload his case. He returned shortly to see Clint tilting his head towards the trunk. "Grab the tire chains and the bungee cords there. Oh, and the lock packet, we'll be needing those too."

Holden gave Clint a curious look as he rummaged through the trunk and brought out the chains. "Where the  _hell_ did these come from?"

Clint grinned ruefully, his eyes never leaving the two in front of him. "Un Fantôme has a way of delivering."

He could see the raised eyebrow the doctor gave him out of the corner of his vision, and he rolled his eyes. "The gas station, genius. Would you hurry it up?"

Lucas spat at his feet suddenly, and Clint regarded him with a quirked brow of his own as the man before him spoke venomously. "Who the absolute  _hell_  are you? Did that bastard Fury set you after us before he kicked the bucket?"

An enormous shower of ice fell over Clint just then.

Or at least, that's what it had felt like. He stared blankly at Lucas for a split second as the words slammed into his consciousness. Kicked the bucket? Fury was  _dead?_  No, that must have been some kind of half baked lie.

Of all the people who could have gone down with the agency, Clint had never expected  _Fury_  to be one of them.

He cooly kept his game face on as he regarded Lucas despite the whirlwind of thoughts in his brain. He turned his lips downward slightly in a mocking frown. "No one "sets" me on anyone. I decide who to wreck all by my self." He gave the man a childish grin as Lucas seethed.

The defector glared at him in full as the scientist shifted beside him, snapping her own pathetic threats as Clint looked on, careful boredom on his face. "I hope you plan on sleeping with one eye open, pig, because after this, nowhere will be safe. Believe me. They  _will_ find you."

Clint considered the words thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging. "Eh. Nowhere sounds pretty good to me."

The dumbstruck looks he got in return made him dip his head in utter disbelief. "Nowhere? You said… 'nowhere will be safe'? It's… it's a play on words… it's… you know what, just shut up and stop disrupting the class, alright?"

Lucas eyed Doctor Holden in turn when he reemerged from the trunk, chains and locks in hand. Ignoring Clint, the defector pressed on, snagging Holden's attention as he straightened out. "And what about you, doctor? You don't exactly have a lab to be going back to. Just what do you plan on doing with that virus of yours?"

Holden froze in his tracks before turning to eye the man slowly. Taking this as a cue to continue, Lucas pressed on. "You have nothing now. Nothing. No resources, no lab, no subjects, no funding. Nothing. The agency doesn't even  _exist_ anymore!" He barely paused for breath as Holden narrowed his eyes at him. "We can give you what you need. Money. Privacy. Staff. Whatever you need, we can provide it. But the way you're going now, you'll have nothing to work with-"

"Aaaaaalright, that's enough out of you for now." Clint stepped forward, glancing uncertainly to the doctor as Lucas continued to ramble over Clint's words. Holden had remained silent, his eyes carefully glazed and just as void of emotion as ever.

And yet, he appeared to genuinely be considering the offer.

Clint felt a snap of dread run through him as he could feel the situation beginning to spiral out of his control.

"I said, that's  _enough,_ Lucas."

Lucas ignored him again, his eyes riveted on Doctor Holden, his final play full of such carefully cloaked desperate barter-ship. "You know I'm right. You have nothing. We can fix that. You demand, we can supply. Doctor Petrosyan could work with you. She's highly capable, I'm sure you've been needing an assistant who's worth a damn-"

Clint did the only logical thing to get things back in his favor.

He pistol whipped Lucas over the head, knocking the man groaning into unconsciousness and landing him in a heap at the scientist's feet.

There was a stunned silence then as Clint glared down at the man before he turned to look between the doctor and the scientist. His eyes settled slowly on Holden, who still had that unnerving spark of uncertainty in his eyes. Clint shrugged lightly as he turned the gun back on Petrosyan.

"Could you _imagine_  living with a voice like that?"

The quip shook some movement back into the doctor, and he shook his head grimly, his mouth a taught, flat line as he stepped forward with the cords.

Clint did the honors of trussing up their traitors while the doctor looked on. He locked the tire chains with a sharp click around their respective arms and torsos, tugging at them to ensure they were tightly secured before making a wide gesture for the trunk.

"Your chariot awaits."

He gave the glare he received from the scientist the best infomercial worthy grin he could before stepping forward and scooping up Lucas with a barely muffled grunt as his hurt shoulder twinged in protest, dumping him unceremoniously into the trunk once he had him secured. The doctor had the scientist follow shortly after, his eyes staring impassively back at her as she spat more increasingly creative curses in his face. Once they were wedged uncomfortably (much to Clint's delight), the archer snatched the bungee cords from the doctor's free hand and wound them tightly around the ankles of both of their hostages. The scientist fairly growled at him as he moved to close the trunk. "Hey now, don't be like that. We're going in the same direction, I figured I'd spare you the hassle of driving." She spat another long string of harsh curses then, and Clint found his eyes drooping slightly.

Honestly, the nerve of prisoners these days.

A sudden  _skkkrtch_  broke the vehement cursing, and a hand appeared out of nowhere to slap a short strip of dusty duct tape over the woman's mouth, effectively silencing the bug eyed scientist. Clint blinked in astonishment before looking up to see Holden holding the small roll of grey tape from the gas station. The doctor gave a halfhearted shrug.

"You're lucky I didn't use it on  _you_ these last few days."

Clint gave him a look before turning back to the trunk and shutting it with a solid  _click._  Once the two were out of view, he heaved an enormous breath in and let it out with an audible whoosh, planting a hand on the side of the car and leaning heavily into it as a slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up in his chest. He reigned it in before it could escape and turned to the doctor, who was standing entirely still from the shock of what had just happened. They had recovered the sample.

Against all odds, they got it back.

Clint really needed that beer Jeff had offered right about now.

He gave the doctor a tired nod as the man shifted from one foot to the next beside him, obviously anxious. "I don't know about you, but I've had just about enough of Canada."

Holden gave the slightest of grins as he nodded fervently and made his way around to the front of the car, heaving open the passenger door and rearranging the sample case to make room for himself. Clint shook his head wryly, refusing to give in to the weight of the relief that wanted to swamp him at getting the sample back. They weren't out of the woods just yet. He needed to follow this through to the bitter end.

He took the liberty of pulling the car the defectors had driven up in off of the road, parking it well out of the way, wedged solidly in a snow drift. He shut the door behind him with a satisfying slam as he made his way back to the Civic. The authorities would find it eventually, but by then, they'd be long gone.

Clint slid easily into the driver's seat, and in seconds they were back on the road, a sense of uneasiness hovering thickly in the cabin despite the sample being clutched to the doctor's torso. Lucas' words reverberated in both their minds, although the consequences couldn't have been any more different.

_The agency doesn't even exist anymore!_

Clint had been ignoring the thought for as long as he could, but now, in the silent aftermath of completing the mission, he was forced to consider it. Where would they go? They didn't exactly have a base to go back to if everything had been shut down. One of the safe houses? They might be monitored. Or gone, even. There was one person he truly trusted enough to go to in a situation like this.

He'd have to contact Natasha.

It took a long moment for his brain to belatedly tack 'and Steve, and Tony, and Bruce, and Thor' onto that quick decision.

He still wasn't quite used to the whole "rah rah, super teammates" shtick.

Still, he figured New York would be as good a place as any to regroup and share what he had learned with the team. He said as such to the doctor, who simply inclined his head in quiet agreement.

The drive was silent for one mile after the next, and Clint slid his eyes to scrutinize his quiet companion. The doctor's eyes were fixed firmly on the road ahead, and his white knuckled grip on the sample had yet to loosen a single iota. Clint furrowed his brow and turned his focus back to the road.

Several days with the man and he still couldn't understand him.

The only compassion he had seemed to be for his work, and yet the endgame of the work he did appeared to be revolting to him. He clearly had emotions, but he refused to acknowledge their existence. He seemed willing to sacrifice a good deal of great for the greater good on a moment's notice, and yet he still created these tiny substances with unfathomable consequences for humanity.

He was an enigma that Clint had given up on unraveling.

But it wasn't the mannerisms of the man himself that Clint couldn't understand.

It was the questions.

The  _questions._ Clint had yet to go a day since the New York fiasco without thinking back on his mind control from the bastard Loki, but the doctor's constant pestering had brought the whole ordeal under a different light. He saw it as a potential  _study_ with no regard to the damage the invasion had on Clint's mind. The questions, always the questions. Did he eat? Did he sleep? Did he feel? Could he hear? Why didn't he fight it? Was he aware?

Was he aware?

Was he  _aware?_

Damn it all, of course he was. And if he could have screamed at the time, his throat would have run raw only minutes into his mind being forcefully yanked from his possession. He remembered every detail in gruesome color, as if Loki had wanted him to carry the weight of what he had done with him for whatever remained of his miserable life.

_The give of agents' flesh under his arrows, innocent and not so falling left and right to his skills. The swift, unmerciful twist of a man's neck. The demand for a man's eyeball to be ripped straight from his skull. The precision in his timed explosions, watching as the base,_ **_his_ ** _base plummeted from the sky, killing God knew how many more. His thoughts, no, not his! But they were his, poisonous and vile and plotting and scheming and stop stop stop, make it stop, please make it stop, get it out get it out getitoutstopstopstoppleasestoppleasestoppleasestopstopstopstopstopstop-_

"Agent Barton!"

Doctor Holden's sharp call sucked Clint out of his unwitting trance, and he swerved wildly to avoid running the car straight off of the bridge he abruptly realized they were on. He sucked in a shaky breath, and the moment they were off the bridge, he pulled to the side of the road, jamming on the brakes as an involuntary groan left his lips and he planted his forehead firmly on the steering wheel. He could feel the doctor watching him curiously, and the prickling of his cool gaze on the back of his neck snapped something holding him back. After a short pause, he held a hand up to the doctor, stopping what he already knew was coming without so much as moving his head.

"No, damn you. Shut up."

The doctor had the nerve to sound offended. "I didn't say anything."

Clint lifted his head tiredly then, his hands searching for the wires beneath the wheel to re-spark the stalled car. "Yeah, well, you thought about it."

Holden ignored the comment as his eyes remained glued to Clint's face, his gaze giving nothing away as he continued softly. "I don't understand why you're so vehemently against sharing what happened. It seems perfectly logical to release the information so as to vent the experience-"

"Screw logic, this is my sanity we're talking about here! I never want to have to relive what I went though again, you got that? " The comment made the doctor bristle, and he lost the uncharacteristic softness his tone had taken on briefly.

"Just think of what you can give us this way, Barton!" The doctor sounded professionally flustered, causing Clint to laugh bitterly.

"I'm already offering my life for you people, what more do you want?"

He appeared to have caught his companion at a loss there, as the man shut his mouth into a tight line and furrowed his brow, his eyes troubled behind his thin glasses. The silence was awkward and seething with turmulous emotion, and Clint was glad to have a distraction in the form of the car restarting and pulling back into the slow trickle of traffic that had gradually increased the closer they came to Toronto. The quiet only lasted a few short minutes before the doctor cleared his throat noisily.

"If you don't mind me asking, how are you planning on getting back into the states with two people chained up in your trunk?"

Oh.

Oops.

Clint shut his eyes briefly when he was certain he wouldn't run ramrod into the car in front of him and inhaled deeply. He spoke heavily on the exhale. "Any suggestions from the peanut gallery, because believe me, I am  _all_  ears-"

He was cut off suddenly by a sharp cry of warning from the doctor, this time directed outside of the car. Clint whipped around in his seat, eyes widening as he saw a large van hurtling towards them from across the lanes on the wrong side of the road.

He spun the wheel abruptly with a tense curse, but as he maneuvered the car out of the way, the van changed it's course and veered right into their path again.

A sharp jolt of shocked understanding ran through him.

It was deliberate.

Clint veered sharply to the right in a last ditch attempt at shaking the van off, but the driver apparently saw the maneuver coming, as he mimicked the movement exactly and floored the gas, the distance between the two cars closing rapidly. Clint's eyes widened as the car swerved one last time, the oncoming van that was speeding towards them suddenly filling the windshield.

It was only in the moment of impact when Clint decided right then and there that he absolutely despised Canada.

* * *

 


	10. An Apple a Day Keeps the Traitors at Bay

* * *

 

There was something tickling his nose.

That never boded well for any parties involved, really.

Clint came to with a fuzzy start at the odd feeling of some uncomfortable material scratching the tip of his nose. It took too many moments to blink his way back past the wall of black that had slammed over him at some point to reality, and even then, the darkness before his eyes refused to yield as he dimly noted the scratching feeling against the back of his neck as well. Several more long moments passed before something in his brain re-fired, piecing together the uncomfortable sensations and grudgingly recognizing the not-as-foreign-as-he'd-have-liked feeling of a sack over his head.

He'd certainly woken up in worse.

Despite the distinct lack of… well,  _anything_ , his sight swum nauseatingly as a pulsing ache rammed its way through the front of his skull. Clint sucked in a slightly surprised breath as the feeling exploded across his forehead, and he grit his teeth as he rode out the sudden flare of pain. When it finally subsided into more of a sharp, prickling sort of sensation, he unhinged his jaw to release the tension that had clamped his mouth shut, his mind working furiously through its haze to piece together just what exactly had happened to cause what felt like the hangover from hell's seventh circle. He shut his eyes (futile as they were open, anyways) against the darkness of the sack and focused on pulling himself out of his fuzzy, practically comatose state.

He figured the focus would bring clarity.

 _Damn,_ he was wrong.

A burst of searing, sharp lava exploded inside of his chest, and he let out an involuntary groan as the fire spread in waves not unlike his head just had. He hissed in a harsh breath in a futile attempt of diminishing the ache, and the fire burst again from the left of his ribcage. Something in the back of his mind dimly diagnosed himself as the torment continued.

Those cracked ribs had finally given in and snapped, it seemed.

Probably from the steering wheel.

_The steering wheel!_

Clint resolutely shoved as much of the agony aside as he could as he blinked away the involuntary tears the onslaught of tingling abuse had brought to his eyes. A van. They'd been rammed by a van. Clint breathed past the lingering prickles of pain as questions raced through his adrenaline fueled mind. Where was the doctor? Where were  _they?_ He froze then, his spine going rigid.

Where was the virus?

"Barton?"

Clint jerked slightly, another short grunt escaping him as the movement grated on his ribs. "Doc?"

He swiveled his head in the direction the hushed call of his name had come from, and he was annoyed to find the bag plastered to what must have been blood on his forehead. The pull of it stung, but he resolutely ignored the feeling as he strained his ears for Holden's voice again. It was only then that he realized just how strange the world sounded around him. When Holden spoke again with an oddly relieved sigh, he realized why.

His left hearing aid was missing.

The week just couldn't get  _any_ better.

"Alive, that's good, that's good," Holden was muttering quietly from somewhere on his right, and Clint zeroed in on the voice as best he could. He shifted slightly and was dully surprised at the rough scrape of what felt like a combination of a bungee cord and a seatbelt wrapped around his wrists.

_Seriously? The seat belts?_

If the hunch Clint had slowly begun to get was true, then he knew for a fact the men who had sacked them had a handy dandy new pair of tire chains they could have used. He zeroed back in on Holden's voice as it took on a tone of hushed urgency.

"I'm assuming you can hear me, so listen. There isn't much time. There was an accident, do you remember?"

Clint mentally rolled his eyes, but the more logical side of his snark won out as he realized he would most likely have asked the same question had their roles been reversed. "Got it. Van. No time?" Another thought struck him then, and he lowered his voice as well, the choppy grunts not quite forming sentences as of yet. "Y' in one piece?"

A rustling sound preceded the doctor's words, and Clint narrowed his eyes against the darkness at the tinge of nervous anticipation in Holden's voice. "Honestly, I should be asking  _you;_ you took the biggest hit. But just… listen to me, alright? The sample is here, but it's clamped to the door on the other side of the van." Before Clint could question him, he continued. "And no, I can't reach it. They've got my hands chained to the damn seat. Only reason I don't have such fashionable headwear as yours, I believe." He paused before correcting himself. "Hope. I've managed to-" There was a short grunt and a clank that interrupted his words then. "- loosen them slightly, but they don't want to budge much. I think I can get them off. I just need more  _time…"_

Well, that certainly answered  _that_ question.

Clint growled in a mixture of pain and frustration as he shifted, loosening the bind around his wrists slightly. A distant thought flitted into his slowly sharpening focus, and he straightened slightly as he curled his leg closer within what  _should_  have been arm's reach. "Think I still have… have th' knife…"

"The what?"

Clint grunted as he struggled to bend his leg in such a way as to reach his shoe. "Knife. From the station."

He was almost entirely certain he had slipped the little rusted blade inside his newly acquired boot before ditching his tattered clothing that morning at the thrift store. As he struggled for a grip on the offending object, he spoke again, grounding himself slightly to clear the sudden wave of nausea that overtook him.

"How'd they find us? Did Lucas make a call?"

Holden's tone was bitter when he spoke. "A tracker. She had a bloody GPS on her. Probably should have frisked them before tossing them in that deathtrap of a car…"

Instinct took over as Clint strained further for his shoe and furrowed his brow in concentration, the tackiness of the blood on his forehead all too noticeable to him. "Any idea where we are?"

Surprisingly, Holden had an answer for him. "We passed back into the states through customs quite a while ago. The bastards just waved us right through, no inspection of any kind. We're… well, roughly halfway through New York, I believe at this point. I'm not sure how long I was out for before they started mentioned something about getting to Deleware…"

New York.

The dust that remained of Clint's lucky stars was sprinkling on him just enough to tilt the odds.

He hoped.

"Barton… there's something else, they were speaking-"

Clint huffed in a breath and clenched his eyes shut as another wave of pain rolled through him just then, the sound of the doctor's voice warping and fading in and out of his focus. He couldn't quite keep back the low grunt of a groan this time, and Holden's sharp tone drifted through his ear hazily.

"Barton?  _Barton,_ what is it?"

Clint couldn't help it.

He laughed.

It wasn't a solid laugh, but a laugh it was all the same. He lifted his head slightly as he choked on the movement, and before the doctor could so much as ask again he was responding breathily.

"Y'know, for supposedly bein' such a smart guy, you  _really_  miss when it comes to the obvious, don'tcha?"

Woah.

Were his words really that slurred?

Holden's voice rose again, and if Clint didn't know any better, he would have thought there was some minuscule twinge of anxious concern under the doctor's urgent tones. And wasn't  _that_ a weird thought.

" _Would you just—_ just,  _listen_. I don't know what it is they're planning on doing, but I  _do_ know it doesn't involve  _you._ They were talking up front just a few minutes ago. They've been discussing, and I won't lie. It doesn't sound like they'll be wanting you around for much longer."

Clint rolled his neck as he focused his attention back on the binds around his wrists, giving up on reaching for the knife entirely as the edges of the material dug into his skin. "Huh. 's a new concept to me."

When the doctor spoke again, his tone was harsher than before, the grating difference finally breaking through Clint's haze as he realized with a sudden snap just how uncharacteristically  _human_ the doctor had sounded before then. "This isn't a joke, Clint! Insufferable as you may  _be_ , you… managed to prove yourself quite adept back on that road, really, and I would quite frankly rather not have my one comrade just…just-just  _eradicated_  right when I'm beginning to tolerate him! Get it together, man, or you might not-"

Before Clint could so much as recognize that Holden had used his first name for the first time since they'd been thrown together, there was an abrupt pause in the doctor's admonishing as an odd, scraping noise sounded from somewhere to Clint's left. The noise was muffled and disorienting as he swiveled his head to compensate for the lack of hearing, but Holden more than informed him of what had happened.

"Wh— Barton, the sample!  _It's not clamped!_ " He heard a distinct rattle and a frustrated growl as Holden struggled further against the chains. Clint shuffled dutifully out of his position and groped around the emptiness with his foot as he listened for the sound of the briefcase. Holden snapped another sentence then that had him refocus as he paused in his ministrations.

"Nevermind it, dammit! Try to get those restraints off!"

Clint sucked in an aggravated breath before speaking between gritted teeth, the darkness of the hood starting to annoy him with a vigor. "What do you think I've been doing, huh?"

The sudden rattle of a door overtook the cabin, and it wasn't Holden who answered him drily.

"While I'm fairly certain that wasn't directed at  _me,_ I'm sure you'll be incredibly happy to know that you've been a rife pain in the ass."

Clint froze at the voice, his brain snapping into full focus as he narrowed his eyes. Lucas' gravely tones were incredibly difficult to mistake. At Clint's prolonged silence, the doctor spoke up, his tone grating in unreined fury. "I could say the same for you! The amount of strain—"

"You know something? I  _really_ don't give a damn, doctor," the man interrupted brusquely, his tone remaining just as light and unnervingly threatening as it had been before. Clint swiveled his head again to follow the voice, a fierce spark of annoyance running through him as his aid-less ear rang dully. He didn't need to try too hard in the end, as a large hand suddenly clapped down on his shoulder, causing him to wince at the fierce spasm it sent through his chest. He refused to let out a sound, however, and he sat resolutely still as the man's voice sounded much closer this time.

"Y'see, you could have set us off schedule quite a bit with that little stunt of yours back there. As it is, you set us back a great deal by taking out our demo man. Had to split our team in two for a bit there to compensate. Shame, really, but we managed. We got  _you_ two in the end, anyways, so in reality, I guess I should be thanking you."

Clint listened with half an ear (quite literally), his attention focused on the sound of more footsteps entering the cabin. The rustling and clumping mangled together into one big mess of a cacophony, and his effort to differentiate just how many men there now were was in vain. Lucas was speaking again, and he forced himself to focus as his brain attempted to zone back out into the haze of pain.

"I'm not sure how you found us again. Hell, I'm not sure I care." There was a short sniff before he continued. "Won't matter soon, anyways. Your stop is coming up any second now."

Clint froze. His stop? They were letting him go?

Clarity rushed over him with a chill then as the doctor seemingly came to the same realization that was suddenly crossing his own mind.

"You're  _throwing him out_?"

There was a short, humorless laugh. "Ah, was it really that obvious? I thought I was being subtle!"

"What for? That's the most senseless-"

"Senseless, doctor? For the record, neither of you should be  _alive_ right now, if we'd had our way the first time around. You're lucky the higher ups decided to make the best of a second chance and keep  _your_ miserable hide around.  _He's_ extra baggage."

Clint bristled at the statement, but just as he opened his mouth to respond hotly, the words died on his tongue.

And not because he didn't have plenty to say.

But because the doctor was already speaking for him.

"Extra baggage? Do you know what this man can do? God's sake, you've seen it with your own eyes these last few days, haven't you? Or are you simply  _blind_? This man is… is a  _survivor_. And- and- and a  _strategist,_ yes, I'm telling you now, he's a damn good one, I'm sure that counts for-"

" _Yes,_ doctor. Which is precisely why he's taking the leap. I don't need  _survivors."_

Clint blinked furiously, his mind trying to process what he had heard.

Had the doctor just tried to  _vouch_ for him?

Futile as the tactic had been, the effort sat awkwardly on Clint's conscious as he shifted under the sudden weight of the silence. There was a soft voice that broke the hush not seconds later, the words garbled and throaty.

_Was that even English?_

The voices barely registered for Clint as he rapidly shoved as much of his will to the forefront of his mind as he could. He shut his eyes against the darkness of the sack again, feeling for the movement of the vehicle beneath him as he counted slowly. What he discovered didn't bode well for him.

There was no way he was getting away unscathed from what they had planned.

Whoever  _they_ were.

The thought sparked an unexpected surge of anger in him, and he rolled his head back languidly to address Lucas. "Bit unprofessional to condemn a man without giving him th' joy of knowing his enemy, in'it?"

The words were out before he could dig deep and find the tact Natasha had relentlessly attempted to pound into him in their earliest mission days.

Apparently it was buried a little  _too_ well.

Lucas was silent for a moment. The moment stretched on, and just as Clint was convinced he wouldn't answer, the gritty voice was just beside his ear. He grimaced as the man spoke, his voice chillingly quiet.

"Your enemy? Harsh, considering you've been  _employed_  by us for your entire miserable career, Barton." Before Clint could so much as start, Lucas cut back in. "It took a moment to get the name, not going to lie. Didn't recognize your ugly mug under all…" He paused then, a faint swish of material suggesting that he was gesturing to his own face. "…Well,  _that._  Honestly, that was the only thing that kept us from just... disposing of you when my ' _pals'_ here rammed you back there. Had to be sure before just killing you off, right? So yes, we know who you are. And no, we really don't care."

Rude.

Arguably infamous Clint Barton could feel his own brow puckering with an aching crinkle as confusion battled for dominance over his furiously spinning mind. "M'sorry, but last I checked… SHIELD wasn't exactly made up of… eh, homicidal maniacs with a flair f'r pyrotechnics and thievery." He paused, something in his mind desperately attempting to un-slur his words as best he could. As it was, he wasn't entirely certain the sentence had actually come out as he had formed it in his mind. What had sounded intelligently snarky to him may have just come out in an incoherent jumble and he'd have a hard time knowing for certain. He lifted an eyebrow as best he could, hoping the gesture was at least sensed through the bag. "Except for that one guy in tech, he was pretty unstable-"

The hand was suddenly on his shoulder again, and he couldn't keep back the hiss of pain when Lucas' thumb dug into his collarbone. "Don't get smart, kid. I'm trying to grant you your dying wish here, the least you could do is be considerate."

There was a pause as the sound of more footsteps registered dimly on Clint's mind. There was a harsh, grating order, and the tone spoke more than the foreign words ever could. The footsteps were all around him suddenly, and the distinct feeling of being surrounded sat disturbingly in his gut as he shifted nervously and Lucas continued speaking, his voice lax.

"No, agent Barton, SHIELD hasn't been the same for quite a while, I'd say. Got a little soft in the middle. Got too confident they'd taken us down one too many times with your oh-so-glorified Star Spangled poster boy."

Something pounded furiously on the edge of Clint's consciousness at that, and he found his breath catching slightly in his throat as his spine went rigid. Lucas was continuing easily, his voice considerably more smug at the barely perceptible reaction he was receiving.

"They never really understood, did they? The most  _basic principle_ of our organization."

Chains rattled mutely on Clint's right as Holden shifted uneasily, the doctor undoubtedly coming to the same conclusion Clint was disbelievingly coming to now. He could hear the grin in Lucas' voice.

"Cut off one head, and another will  _always_ grow back."

And suddenly, Clint was thrown into an adrenaline spiked focus as his thoughts came to a crashing halt.

He'd heard the stories. He'd read the reports. He'd seen the details in Steve's file after the New York debacle. He'd heard it from the man himself.

And it all came together with a gut-wrenching snap.

_HYDRA?_

No.

Lying.

Lucas had to be lying.

But why would he?

_There was no reason to!_

Clint's mind was racing, thoughts flashing across his mind, some being dismissed immediately and others built on in a matter of seconds. HYDRA _?_   _HYDRA_  had been incorporated with SHIELD? For how long? Had they always had their hands muddled in with the agency's business? How many orders had he carried out under them when he thought he was doing the right thing? How many wrong targets? False superiors? What about Fury? Natasha? He refused to believe it, and yet, muddled snippets of uncertainty from the agency were suddenly brought into harsh clarity. Neil's hunch had been right. It hadn't been a single rogue group. A million thoughts raced through his brain, all muddling together into a nauseating feeling of betrayal.

_He'd been used._

He felt rather than heard the executive decision that rushed through the minds of the men surrounding him then as his own mind whirled in distress, and he forced himself to pull out of his crippling disbelief and focus on the reality that was undoubtedly going to be his very,  _very_ painful situation. The car was slowing just barely enough to feel through the shuddering of the seat, and Clint dutifully sucked in a last gulp of air before what he knew was going to be one of the worst moments of his whole idiotic role in this fiasco.

He only hoped it wouldn't  _actually_ be his last breath.

"Now, hold on just a moment! Why get rid of him now? Surely he-"

"Holden, you say one more word and you're out with him, higher-ups be damned. You might be a regular…  _Bessarion,_ let's say, but I highly doubt you'll be able to pick a side when you're too busy picking pieces of yourself off of the pavement alongside your little lackey here."

A sudden, frantic rustling noise preceded the expected  _clunk_ of the door handle, and a gust of frigid air swept into the cabin, chilling Clint to the bone within milliseconds of the door being flung open. Four hands that he could feel gripped his shoulders then, and he grit his teeth as he was manhandled into a position just beside the open door to the van, the seatbelt and bungee cord contraption binding his wrists tearing away with a burning snap.

There was a whirlwind of disorienting noise as he was lifted from his seat, and yet over the maddeningly confusing dissonance, there was one noise that rang clear to him.

The rattle of bullet aluminum casing on metal flooring.

A wild, half witted plan came to him then in a short moment of panic, and suddenly, he had a goal.

He couldn't miss.

He  _couldn't miss_.

A short, strangled noise barely registered in his ear as he felt the hands clench tighter around his aching biceps, and a short moment of clarity ran through him as he recognized the doctor's voice.

" _Stop this-!"_

_Now!_

The goons didn't disappoint as they hauled Clint up off of the floor. With one solid swing backwards, they shifted forward as one and clenched their muscles to toss him bodily out of the car. Clint's opening was closing quickly, and just before they swung him forward to finish the job, he lashed out with his left leg and thrust his foot in what he only prayed was the direction of the sample beside the door at this point. His foot miraculously struck metal, and he desperately wedged his toe into the minuscule gap between the casing and the handle as the casing was pressed against the wall beside him. A terrified thrill of grim satisfaction ran through him as he felt it hold fast to his foot, the pressure of the wall against his foot doing the trick as the men followed through their swing.

The hood ripped away from his head with the sudden gust of wind just in time for him to see the dawning looks of stunned panic on the three men's faces and the horrified expression on Doctor Holden's.

And then he was careening out over the open road, deadly toxin in tow and on a crash course with certain death.

Just another average Monday for Clint Barton.

* * *

 


	11. Live and Let Die

* * *

 

The mixed yells of surprise and anger followed him and the sample out into the freezing air as the van raced on it's way and he sailed out of the vehicle. Clint didn't have long to appreciate the reaction as gravity soon claimed what was rightfully its own and his impromptu flight from the speeding van came to an unpleasant stop. He had just enough time to latch a flailing hand onto the case still wedged onto his toe and reposition it tightly against his chest as he curled into a ball and braced for agony.

And boy, did it deliver.

The ground slammed up into his shoulder first, sending an excruciating shockwave of trauma through every inch of bone in his body. His breath caught violently in his throat as he tucked his form as tightly around the case as he could and prepared to roll when the rest of his body made contact. The gravel dug into his skin as his arm followed suit of his shoulder and rammed against the ground mercilessly. A blunt, harsh  _snap_ resounded even over the roar of the highway and the disorienting muddle of noise from his one aid, and his vision tunneled dangerously close to blacking out as the pain radiated through his nerves a split second later.

And then he was rolling.

Arm over arm, legs flailing to curl under the sample, he rolled across the lanes of the highway, the road tearing into his clothing and nicking at his face as it ripped away at the fabric. His tongue caught between his teeth as his jaw snapped open and shut, and if he wasn't so focused on the sheer amount of agony roiling from every  _other_  nerve in his body and radiating through his brain, the sharp sting would have registered much sooner. He could feel his jacket practically shredding beneath him as it ground unrelentingly against the pavement, and his entire world became an unbearable blur of pain and noise and the taste of copper.

A bump in the pavement sent him airborne for a short moment in his uncontrollable tumble, and the jarring re-impact of the ground loosened his curled position around the case. A short, sharp cry of anguished frustration exploded out of his lips as the sample wrestled its way out of his grasp and skittered out of reach with a bump and a clatter. He didn't get a chance to spare much more thought to the loss, as his brain locked back up with the onslaught of pain.

He wasn't sure when he finally stopped rolling.

All he knew was that he was never visiting Canada again.

He didn't know how long he stayed wherever he had landed in a crumpled heap, the world around him spinning in a maddening blur of pulsing light. His arm was on fire, and  _he_ was on fire, and he would have given anything to not feel a damn thing just then as the pulse of torment ramrodded its way through his body, forcing him to curl in on himself with a shuddering gasp as his eyes screwed shut against the overwhelming presence of so much  _everything_.

The distant screeching of tires and car horns made it to him groggily through the haze of  _holy shit, I'm dead_ that had overtaken his mind a some point, but he couldn't bring himself to care. The squealing of rubber and locked brakes multiplied tenfold, and muffled shouting joined the mix, and still, he shut it out. He kept his eyes clamped tightly closed against the intrusion as he rocked as slowly as he could onto his back, his good arm's forearm lifted in the air from where his elbow was solidly planted on the pavement. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't get past the sheer agony that had overtaken his body. It took much too long for the blackness he had been expecting to creep in on the edges of his vision.

But it could never be so easy for him.

" _Clint!"_

Oh, hey, that was him.

_"Clint, get up!"_

Okay,  _bit_  more difficult, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

_"Barton, move!_ **_"_ **

_Shelle?_

No.

Shelle was dead.

Because…  _why, again_?

This was someone else.

Clint opened his eyes (and found it rather odd that he couldn't quite remember closing them), disgruntled.

Couldn't whoever was shouting just let him die in peace? He'd done enough, hadn't he? After all, he'd single handedly gotten back —

_The sample!_

A spike of realization rammed through what little was left of his consciousness, and Clint came back to himself with a snap that left him reeling. The world lost a small chunk of its haze around him, and the thrumming in his aid-less ear diminished behind the influx of clarity in his other ear. Holden was still shouting at him from somewhere in the distance, his name echoing over the highway desperately.  _The case. He had to get the case. Finish the mission._

_Finish the mission!_

Just  _how_ he was planning on finishing it, he wasn't certain yet.

He'd figure it out as he went.

Wonderful as the results had been with  _that_ little tactic this last week.

Clint forced himself to blink away the last of the cobwebs and inhale deeply. His vision ran a sickening red as he blinked furiously, and he felt the warm ooze of blood running steadily down from his forehead with a newfound anger. An enormous amount of willpower he didn't realize he even had coursed through him then, and he forcefully slammed the pain and the torment and the panic (had he been that willing to  _die_ just now?) under his metaphorical carpet.

He'd come too damn far to just up and kick off now.

They'd lost too much on this mission already.

Jeff.

Casey.

Neil.

He'd be damned if he let them lose their last chance of saving a hell of a lot of people from a hell of a lot of torment.

There was still work to do.

A heave of a breath prepared him as best it could, and suddenly, he was forcing himself to sit up. An explosive grunt left him as the movement jostled his busted arm, and he shifted it closer to his torso to keep it as steady as possible. His vision swam once, twice, and then it was blessedly clear, the adrenaline sharpening his focus just as he needed it to.

An oddly manic laugh drifted across the highway to him, and Holden's tone changed as he quit shouting for him to get moving.

" _I told you he was a survivor, you absolute arse!"_

Clint wasn't sure he believed what he saw as he turned dizzyingly in his sitting position to face the metaphorical music.

The highway was a mess of stopped traffic, cars spun this way and that to avoid collision on the slick road. There were figures inside and out of the cars, all turned in his direction, hands covering mouths in horror and others holding phones urgently to ears. Others were pointed at him, cameras eagerly hunting in grotesque fascination.

A chaotic, gurgling, rushing sort of noise registered, and the barest of glances around his vicinity revealed the source of the sound. His 'stop' had been on a bridge spanning a raging, foam frothed river, rocky outcrops jutting out from the depths like shark fins eagerly circling their prey.

Either the traitors had messed up  _big_ time in not simply tossing him over the edge, or the timing had just been incredibly unlucky.

Clint wasn't sure he cared.

The case lay some ten feet away from where he sat crumpled, the metallic sheen not showing a single scratch for all the abuse it had taken.

Thirty more feet beyond that was the van.

The doors were flung wide open, and Lucas was in the process of leaping down from the vehicle. He hit the ground at a sprint, bolting in Clint and the sample's direction as soon as his boot clad feet hit asphalt. Behind him, Clint could see Holden pulling frantically against the chains wound around his wrists, the two other men now joined by Doctor Petrosyan in the back of the cabin. All of their focus was held intently on the sprawled, battered form of the archer in the middle of the highway and their cohort sprinting hell for leather towards him.

_Pain is a message._

_Pain is only a message._

_So MOVE, dammit!_

With a flail of his good arm, Clint threw himself vertical in a stumbling, hunched motion, the momentum moving him forward more so than upwards. He found his feet with a difficulty that frankly scared the living hell out of him, but he found them all the same, and he lurched towards the case that Lucas was bearing upon. His stumbling sprint gained a terrifying momentum as he almost face planted, but he forced himself to straighten out and bear with the crippling pain wracking practically every nerve of his body as his broken arm jostled against his chest.

He had to make it.

_He had to make it!_

There were people shouting somewhere. Hysterical voices. Angry voices. Worried voices. He didn't care. He couldn't care. He'd deal with them later, but now, his whole world tunneled around the case and the case alone.

So it was impossible to miss it being yanked upwards when he was all of five feet away from it.

"Ah, ah, ah. Your ticket didn't include luggage,  _pal_."

Clint could physically feel the snarl of frustration rip it's way across his face at Lucas' smug words. The man had the case in hand, his face twisted in a mixture of fury and victory.

That same expression warped in shock as Clint slammed bodily into him.

The duo crashed to the ground, the case skittering haphazardly to the side as Lucas released in in surprise. Clint could feel his training practically set his muscles into autopilot, and he let them react as he focused solely on not passing out. He delivered as sharp of a blow as he could manage to Lucas' throat with his bandaged hand as his other arm jostled agonizingly against his chest, but the man blocked the weak attempt with barely a bat of his palm. The traitor glared venomously up at him as he shoved Clint off of his torso and made to stand as the archer rolled off.

Not if Clint had anything to say about that little idea.

Or rather,  _act_.

Lucas stumbled as Clint flung himself forward and latched onto his legs with his good arm, his own legs following the momentum and swinging around to solidly collide with the back of the man's knee. The agent dropped to the pavement again with a pained grunt as the collision rammed into his tendons, and Clint felt a dull thrill of satisfaction as he managed to use what little remained of his momentum to stand himself. He stumbled away from Lucas as fast as he could (which was really quite depressingly slow) and zeroed back in on the case a few feet away, glinting mockingly against the deep black of the road.

Holden's sudden shout of warning gave him just enough time to snap his head up and duck wildly as a fist flew out of nowhere towards his face. One of the men had leapt out of the van as well and sprinted towards the two tustling figures of the archer and the HYDRA agent, and as Clint ducked the swing, the goon leapt back to snag the case from the ground. He didn't slow down as he made to run back to the van, gradually increasing the distance between the archer and himself. Clint ran through what was left on his person somewhat foggily as he stumbled after the man, the increasing distance sending a pulse of desperation coursing through him. With half of his focus on the road passing blurrily beneath him, Clint swore hoarsely before shoving a hand in his pocket.

His hand struck something solid, and he whipped the offending item out with slight difficulty as the washcloths binding his hands loosened considerably. It was the stranger's phone he had stolen just hours prior, miraculously still sandwiched in his deep pocket. It was bent and shattered beyond recognition and whoever 'David' had been would never get a passive aggressive text in response to his message, but it didn't matter to him in the slightest.

It would do.

He pulled to an abrupt halt as he drew back his good arm, compensating for the lack of balance his broken limb gave him as he aimed. The effort was in vain, really, as his balance was shot to all hell from his abused ears, the influx of silence and sound muddling his senses.

With a short, sharp grunt, he flung the phone with what he only hoped was his renowned, deadly precision, the makeshift projectile sailing in an arc-

-and missing its mark.

It didn't matter in the end.

It missed the exact center of the man's head, flying high and colliding solidly with the top.

Clint would have mourned the minuscule miss had he been in a right mind. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to berate himself for the throw quite yet. A headshot was a headshot.

The practical brick of a phone made a positively comical  _thunk_ audible even over the river and sent the agent sprawling as he yelped in pain. Clint felt a thrill of satisfaction run through him as he stumbled up to the downed man, the slumped form unmoving on the pavement. He reached for the case, his fist closing solidly around the handle as he stood and pivoted in place to calculate his next course of action.

He spun directly into Lucas' right hook.

Clint fell like a ton of bricks as the fist collided solidly with his jaw, sending his already ringing ears into oblivion as stars exploded across his sight. The case was wrestled from his grip as he furiously tried to blink away the tunnel encroaching on his vision. He barely had a moment of reprieve when a hand jammed into his throat.

Lucas' snarling face filled his spinning sight as he clawed at the hand closing around his larynx, effectively cutting off his already labored airflow. Clint's ragged gasp for a breath that wouldn't come almost overlaid Lucas' vehemently spat words.

"You just don't know when to give up, do you, Barton?"

The hand closed a little tighter, and Clint could feel his own hand flailing futilely at the arm extended towards him as the muscles started to refuse response. Lucas had a wild gleam of victory in his eyes then as his vision tunneled entirely and spun with a dizzying spiral.

" _Let me help you learn._ "

The last thing Clint heard before the ringing swamped his senses and the slowly encroaching darkness around his vision expanded was a woman's muffled, startled shout.

_Petrosyan?_

He couldn't tell. He didn't need to.

He was dead anyways.

_He'd failed._

Would Natasha ever find out?

He almost hoped she never would.

He could see the official file now, all stamped and red and a whole new definition of ugly as they tossed it into the "expired" drawer of the cabinet kept in headquarters. Maybe they had a wall of fame for the "throwaways" they took down, the lettering covering the pictures withholding all of the information they damn well knew but were in no way going to share.

_Clint Barton, agent MIA. Presumed dead._

It had a morbid ring to it that could have suited him much better in a previous life.

Either way, he wasn't certain he would have liked for her to read those words stamped impersonally across what little remained un-blacked out of his file.

It would appear he wouldn't have the choice.

The air quit coming entirely then, and he felt his hand flop to the pavement, as lifeless as Neil's had been after he'd finally accepted the lack of pulse and left the man to the sleet and snow. A short, dull pang of regret coursed though him at the thought.

_They'd died for nothing._

And yet...

Just as rapidly as it had appeared, the pressure collapsing his throat in on itself was gone.

It took a long moment before Clint's brain stuttered back to itself and forced his body to suck in a greedy breath, his frame wracking with coughs he refused to yield to as fiery heat seared his abused throat. He gulped in the blessed oxygen as quickly as he dared in an unsteady attempt to clear his vision.

He wasn't sure he believed his eyes when it finally did.

The case was at Lucas' feet, and the man's hands were gripping at something silver and glinting wrapped tightly across his neck. There was a distinct rattling noise as the offending object shifted.

Chains.

Tire chains.

Clint gaped owlishly as Doctor Holden came into view behind Lucas, the Brit's white-knuckled death grip on the chains unyielding as he pulled back against the HYDRA agent's throat.

How on earth he had gotten away from Petrosyan and the remaining man in the van, Clint wasn't entirely sure he would have heard then and there.

Frankly, he couldn't care less.

The doctor's face was strained, a vein in his forehead throbbing as he grimaced against the struggling of the man beneath his chains. He darted a glance to Clint then, his glasses skewed and his face suitably panicked. When he spoke, every other word made it through Clint's pulsing consciousness. It took too long to realize what the man was shouting through gritted teeth to him.

"Joint— was brittle, but I don't— think the others-"

Fate must have had a serious grudge with the man, as the words had barely passed his lips when the second frail joint between the links of the chain chose that exact moment to snap apart. Lucas tugged the makeshift weapon away from his throat roughly, pulling a squawking Holden along with them. The doctor made to stumble out of the man's range, his eyes blown wide with a mixture of panic and outright terror. Clint fought for his footing again as Lucas coughed, spittle flying and raw red marks already blossoming across his throat. The furious man lashed out harshly at his assailant, his fist connecting solidly with the doctor's jaw. The Brit backpedaled with a stagger, the momentum sending him crashing to the ground, his expression dazed as his hands flew to his face. Clint was still struggling to figure out which way was up when Lucas stepped back into his line of vision, effectively blocking the doctor.

The man's breath came in a rattle as he stooped and gripped the case. He staggered slightly as he backed away from Clint, and the archer watched in some dull confusion as the man stepped away.

It was only when he spun that Clint realized what was happening.

Doctor Petrosyan remained in the van, her expression frazzled as the other man that had been in the vehicle grappled with clearing gawkers from the bridge in an attempt to reach the fight, one hand clasped suspiciously to the side of his neck, a small smudge of red visible even to Clint from across the distance. At the sight of his comrade returning, however, he spun to rush back to the van.

Clint caught Lucas' eye once more before the man turned away in full, obvious grudging acceptance in the HYDRA agent's eye.

Desperate panic coursed through Clint then, and he shifted as best he could into a kneeling position, the side of his foot flat against the pavement.

The prick of the blade against the arch of his foot was all it took to remember he was armed. He stared owlishly at the handle poking out from the boot for a full second before gripping it and removing it entirely.

Clint could have up and died from his sheer stupidity right then and there.

A bitter growl of a shout left him before he knew what he was saying, his hand curling carefully to conceal the impromptu weapon and a humorless laugh tailing the words in a last ditch effort of recapturing the retreating man's attention.

"Y' can't even finish the  _job_?"

Lucas ignored him, his stride steady as he neared the crowd. The onlookers backed away furtively, their trills of fear not quite registering for Clint. He raised his voice as he struggled to sit up further, his yell hoarse and grating and full of venom.

" _How'd y' get into th' agency in the first place, y' pansy?"_

The man paused at that.

Before Clint could bait him further, Lucas stood long enough to pivot on his heel, and suddenly he was in front of Clint's kneeling form, the fury that had run unbridled in his eye only moments earlier reined in slightly as he regarded the downed archer with unmasked contempt. He opened his mouth-

-but Clint didn't let him even begin as he twisted the rusted pocketknife and slashed wildly for the back of the man's hand.

The case fell from his bleeding hand as Lucas let out a yell, and Clint scooped the sample up as he stood with a stagger. He backed away from the man slowly, blinking furiously to clear his swimming vision. Before he knew it, however, he hit the wall.

Quite literally.

The bridge's guard wall poked sharply into Clint's lower back, and a short glance revealed what he already knew. The river was churning just as eagerly beneath them, the froth oddly soothing as Clint felt his attention drift dangerously. He shifted his focus as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and at the sight of Lucas making to approach him, hand clutched in the grip of the other as blood ran through his fingers, Clint found himself acting without fully realizing.

All motion froze, Lucas rigid in his stance as he stared openly, a glint of uncertainty in his eyes. Holden, mid valiant effort of sitting up, shook himself out of his stupor slightly in time to catch sight of Clint's half witted plan, and he gawked with open confusion.

Clint held the case over the edge of the bridge with a rigid arm, the sample dangling precariously in the open as he stared unblinkingly back into Lucas' wary gaze. He was slumped against the crumbling brick to keep from keeling over and his arm was on fire and he was practically curling in on himself from the abuse he'd taken, but he put every ounce of will he could scrounge that was left into the challenge in his stare.

Lucas moved then, his hand shifting up to one of bartering pause as his eyes shifted between the sample and Clint's steely face, the archer blinking resolutely past the blood running into his eyes. When the man spoke, his voice was low.

"Now, you and I both know you really don't want to be doing that."

Clint could feel the unbidden scoff on his mouth as he ground out a response, giving a rigid, minute nod of challenge. "Y'sure?"

Lucas gave him another long, searching look then before relenting and crossing his arms, ignoring the blood still seeping slowly from the gash across his fist as he stepped back to stare Clint right back. He gave Clint a once over, eyes scanning over the bruises and blood and the heaving chest from the ragged breathing before he shrugged.

"Drop it. You won't live long enough to feel clever."

The archer's arm wavered slightly, the case swaying dangerously close to simply slipping out of his hand and making the decision for him. Clint stared back into Lucas' eyes, the distant sound of sirens and the sudden hush of the onlookers around them not reaching him through the tension.

The moment stretched on as he slowly broke the eye contact, shifting his gaze to the water below. The churning of the current frothed furiously, the turbulence practically begging for him to simply drop the damned thing and just be done with it.

He darted a glance back to the doctor, who had sat up further, his hand forgotten and plastered to his jaw as he watched Clint carefully. There was something akin to fear in his eyes, but it seemed drastically different than the animalistic anxiety Clint had seen in the man over the course of their little debacle. The doctor sat still as the gawkers around them, his gaze riveted on Clint and Lucas' silent standoff.

Clint weighed his options, his gaze landing back on Lucas as the agent shifted forward none too subtly.

He could drop the case.

But that would land him in a situation of being… well, dead, really. And he'd have no way of stopping the traitors from retrieving the case once he was offed.

He could hand it over and go out swinging.

But then they'd have the case.

And he'd still be dead.

Wonderful variety of choices, so it appeared.

Lucas' gaze snapped away from Clint without warning, and suddenly he was shifting forward again as the sirens suddenly pierced through Clint's haze, the proximity of the blaring sound startling him slightly. He backed up further, the stone of the bridge pressing into his hip and anchoring him harshly.

It was only then that he realized he had a third option.

Well, not only then.

Option Number Three was  _always_ at the back of his mind.

But he had always hoped it would never be necessary in such a… well,  _real_ situation.

There was only one outcome in which Clint had the barest, remote, .09% chance of getting out alive and on top.

Time could have frozen for all he knew in that moment as he decided then and there exactly what needed to be done to ensure the safety of the sample alongside the possibility of him actually living long enough to  _see_  it to safety. A crisp sense of clarity that Clint had thought impossibly out of reach washed over him as the realization struck him, and suddenly, he could breath. Whether it was from acceptance or stone cold fear, he chose to ignore.

Fingers clenched painfully around the sample's handle as Clint inhaled deeply, adjusting his broken arm against his side as he shut his eyes for barely a second.

He was devastatingly surprised to find that he had far too much left to come to terms with.

He forced his eyes open before he could wallow in the fact, and he shot one last, long look to the doctor, who was watching with mounting confusion on his face. Holden had slumped forward at some point, drawing himself up to a low, curled stoop on his knees and apparently mid-attempt in standing. He caught Clint's eye, all fear gone from his own and replaced by calculating query.

Clint gave the nosy, general complete  _pain_  of a man the smallest of grins and inclined his head slightly, flickering as much remorse as he could into the minute gesture.

And horrified clarity rushed across the doctor's face with a jolt that struck the man's spine rigid.

Before Holden could so much as say a word, Clint was speaking, voice low and surprisingly clear. Lucas blinked as Clint forced himself to stand a little straighter with an exhale, stunned at the change.

"I don't feel clever."

Lucas furrowed his brow, the angry spark in his eye rekindling with a suitable amount of suspicion as he chose that moment to uncross his arms and step forward. " _Well,_ glad we can agree on  _something_ -"

"But neither will you, I'm sure."

With that, Clint drew the case back over solid ground to his chest, looping his good arm through the handle and clasping it tightly to his torso. It took Lucas barely a second to realize what was happening as Holden chose that moment to regain his voice, the doctor scrabbling to find his feet.

_"Barton, you absolute idiot-!"_

The shout didn't hold any conviction for the insult it entailed. Rather, it sounded downright distraught.

It was a second too long for Lucas in the end.

The traitor launched himself at Clint then, his feet pounding the pavement as he practically threw himself at the archer with a snarl of rage.

" _Don't you dare, you worthless-!"_

Clint didn't hear the rest as he gave the rapidly approaching man one last, fleeting grin of victory before leaning as far back as he could and kicking his feet cleanly off of the ground.

And for the fifth time that day, Clint fell.


	12. Perfluocarbon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: A bit of gore at the end of the chapter here.

* * *

 

The water came as a shock.

Well, not in a  _shocking_ sort of way, exactly; he knew damn well what he was getting himself into.

No, it wasn't surprising in the least.

But it hurt like a son of a bitch.

The brief moment of weightlessness hadn't lasted long as he had plummeted from the bridge, distant screams and an impossibly loud siren the last things he really noted before he turned to face what he only hoped wouldn't be his  _immediate_  demise.

It wasn't.

He wasn't sure if he would have been better off if it  _had_  been.

The feeling of the wind rushing past him ended in a mind numbing impact of frigid tension, and Clint felt the breath explode from his body as the contact practically immobilized him from shock. The water rushed in over his head, and he screwed his eyes shut instinctually against the murky depth of the practically frozen river. As the air was briefly forced from his lungs, he was distantly shocked to find he had enough sense of self to shut his mouth and negate the impulsive gasp he wanted to take in.

And then he was moving.

The frenzied current swept at him, the rushing and rumbling of the sound distorted beneath the churning waves as Clint shot alongside it like a bullet from a gun. The panic welled up paralyzingly in his mind with the noise and the chill and the pain because  _he couldn't breathe dammit,_ the onslaught of sensation threatening to overwhelm him. It took a bit more digging to go deep enough to pull himself back from the brink of a full on freak out this time.

Latching onto the one solid goal he had left, Clint clasped the case that had miraculously stayed wedged against his torso after the brunt from the fall. The constant rush of water shot up his nose and pummeled his skin, but he held on.

That was one thing he'd always been good at, anyways.

Holding on.

The doctor had said it, and he was right.

He was a survivor, damn it.

For the umpteenth time that day alone, Clint lost track of what was up and what was down as he spun in a maddening dance with the current, and the sudden need to take a breath overwhelmed his mind as the frigid river tugged him every which way through the current. The thought rang clear over the whirlwind of distress that had overshadowed his brain the second he had hit water.

_He needed to get to the surface._

As fate would have it in the end, he actually didn't.

The surface, in turn, came to  _him._

Clint's head broke through the waves sharply, the sting of the wind on his face causing him to gasp in a mixture of surprise and a greedy need for oxygen. The raging rapids threatened to tug him under again as he spun out slightly, but with a pained, aggravated kick, he held himself up just enough to gulp in a few precious lungfuls of air. His grip tightening around the case (and pulling against him with the added weight, he noted in dismay), Clint blinked the stinging mixture of water and blood from his eyes as he swept along, his head spinning as he tried to make sense of where he was.

Somewhere in the dizzying rotation, he caught sight of the bridge. It was shrinking at an alarmingly fast pace, and Clint could feel the surge of triumph that ran through him at the realization.

The feeling died a swift death as his broken arm jostled excruciatingly in the rocking wake of a new burst of water.

He hadn't quite thought this part of the plan through very well.

He'd really only hoped for the .o9% chance of him surviving to be enough.

 _How_ he'd go about surviving, however…

With a suddenness that left him reeling, a wave crashed over the back of Clint's head, sending him under once again as his ears rang dully with the impact. A jet of water shot up his nose, and before he could reign in the impulse, Clint was coughing.

The water sucked into his mouth immediately as he spluttered a sharp inhale, and the coughing fit escalated tenfold as he thrashed for the surface again. This time, it took much longer for fate to intervene.

She only had so many freebies to give in one day, it seemed.

By the time he breached the surface again, his lungs were in agony, the combined pressure from the broken ribs and the influx of water doing them no favors whatsoever.

It was only then that Clint let the reality of the situation fully bowl him over.

There was likely no way out of this one.

So much for the .09%.

The current slowed somewhat as the river reached a bend, and Clint pushed against it as resolutely as he could, the pathetic attempt at regaining control barely holding him against the rapids. The effort did spin him in place slightly, however, and as he squinted past the haze that had decided to dominate his vision for the better part of the hour, a whole new chill pierced his heart at what he saw.

There was someone else in the river.

The figure was rapidly approaching, albeit in just as uncontrolled of a manner as Clint. The archer blinked furiously past the spray and the tunnel he was hesitant to admit was encroaching on his vision as the form drew closer.

If it was Lucas or one of his companions, then he was well and truly dead. All of his efforts, all of his sacrifices,  _everything_ would have been for nothing.

And yet, the figure didn't appear to be imposing whatsoever. If anything, it seemed downright…

_"-ton!"_

_…_ scrawny.

The shout barely reached Clint's ears, and even then, he was uncertain of whether or not he had actually heard it or simply imagined it. It wasn't long before his guess was confirmed as a second shout rang out over the waves as the figure drew close enough to see the flop of soaking blond hair plastered to his forehead.

And the utter, resolute, sheerly unbridled terror in his eyes.

Holden.

Doctor Holden.

 _What the_   ** _hell?_**

Clint could only stare in disbelief, the haze of pain and confusion and desperation practically forgotten as the current spun him away from his reluctant comrade, the water lapping up at his face once again and causing him to splutter. The action shook him out of his reverie, and before he knew what he was doing, he was forcing himself to straighten, his legs going rigid as he flailed searchingly for the riverbed.

His toe hit a jagged, undoubtedly enormous rock protruding from deep in the river, and the snag was enough to spin him back in the to face the doctor. Sure enough, the man was still surging downstream some ten feet away, his head ducking beneath the waves just as frequently as Clint's, a wet, hacking cough joining the overwhelming roar. The archer took one last, incredulous stare before opening his mouth to call back to the idiot who had either jumped to follow him or had proceeded to be thrown over the side alongside him.

He had no sooner done so than an enormous wave surged from seemingly nowhere as the river took a sudden sharp bend, and without warning, Clint was submerged once more.

This time, he couldn't quite shake the feeling he wouldn't be resurfacing anytime soon.

There was a moment when he wasn't entirely certain if he had simply quit holding his breath, but the moment soon passed, and he knew damn well that he had inhaled more water than oxygen during his last trip to the surface.

There was a jarring, blunt ram to his shoulder, and the darkness that had fled from his vision momentarily at his shock of seeing Holden returned full force, overshadowing his vision entirely. The impact spun him erratically in the current, a sudden shift in the sound around him the only warning for what came next.

What felt like solid rock heaved up from the depths of the river and collided solidly with his arm.

It wouldn't have been much of an issue under normal circumstances, really.

But, as Clint had already discovered and frankly verified one time too many in the last week alone, fate was an absolute whore.

It was his broken arm.

A new surge of splintering agony shredded its way up his limb as he felt the impact, and if he had actually opened his mouth to scream, he would never have known. His vision throbbed dangerously close to blacking out entirely, and Clint couldn't quite find it in himself to be alarmed at how honestly okay he was with the thought at the moment.

He hadn't been lying to himself.

He was damn good at holding on. He had prided himself on holding on to a great many things that may or may not have been better left forgotten.

As fate would have it, however, the day was undoubtedly one of firsts for him.

This didn't exclude the possibility of letting go.

There was a joke in there, somewhere, he was certain of it.

The pulsing darkness ebbed slightly, and he waited for it to return almost longingly as something in his arm went numb. But he should have learned his lesson on the bridge.

It was never so easy for him.

Something latched onto the wrist of his broken arm firmly, and the sudden severity of the searing shock of pain was all that had Clint's eyes flying wide open against the inevitable black-out pressing at the edges of his consciousness. He didn't have it in him to attempt a shout at the sudden presence of feeling. The grip tightened slightly as a rush of bubbles wove its way around him, and he squinted blearily through the murk in an attempt to see what had snagged him.

A hand.

It was a hand.

A very  _blurry_  hand, but a hand all the same.

Clint let his head loll with the current, his vision traveling up to the owner of the hand. He supposed he should have felt…  _something_ to see who it was.

It certainly wasn't surprise.

After all, who else would it have been?

Holden's grip faltered slightly, and a sudden shadow whipping into Clint's line of blurry sight revealed why. A rectangle. With a smaller rectangle on top.

The case.

He'd held on to it somehow.

Until now, it appeared.

The grip on his wrist slackened considerably as Holden appeared to thrash in the direction of the case, and suddenly, the hand was gone entirely.

Within a millisecond, the doctor's murky figure had disappeared.

A petulant sense of resigned sorrow ran through Clint at the realization, and if he had had the strength to, he might have cursed aloud, water be damned.

Holden hadn't come after him.

He'd come after the case.

There was a moment in which Clint resigned himself to what he owlishly considered his first really deserved pity party before there was something brushing his arm.

And there was the hand again, fingers splayed in a desperate stretch.

A sudden swerve in the current shifted the figure away from him, however, and when the darkness ebbed what he knew would be one last time, there was nothing beside him.

And so, with the knowledge that he had well and truly failed, Clint gave in to a new first.

He let go.

* * *

It was raining the night they had died.

He remembered it like it was yesterday.

The car had been mangled beyond recognition, the hood mashed to the bumper and the glass littering the road glinting in the drops like mirrors for the swollen black clouds above.

Driving under the influence, they had said. Hadn't been paying attention. Not a single thought to the one's they would be leaving behind if they had been so carelessly  _stupid._

Barney had said they'd taken them away to be helped.

But Clint had seen the faces of the men around him.

Even at his young age, he knew death's oppressing shadow when it was present.

They had sent them away shortly after. From one orphanage to the next, they'd hopped in and out of lives faster than they could remember the names of the children around them. Horribly dank places, with mildew and wood rot and enough termites to start a small army against the boys' wooden soldiers.

There had been one near a beach.

Clint had liked it there.

It had been quiet. Warm. They let the kids out onto the shore twice a day for exercise, and Clint could remember running like the sand at his heels was lava as he sprinted after the gulls and watched them take flight in a cacophony of squawking and beating wings. He'd watched until they were out of sight over the glimmering waves, wings beating in powerful strokes towards a new horizon line that he knew he would undoubtedly be seeing in a new light come the next morning. The feeling of wishing he could have simply leapt from the sand and flown off with them never really left him.

Not when he joined the circus.

Not when his master betrayed him and offered a freedom he was simply unable to envision.

Not when his brother had died.

Not when he had joined S.H.I.E.L.D, a brash, reckless young man looking for his own way to finally get his goddamned wings and just _fly_ already.

Clint loved the beach.

So when the sound of gentle waves lapped into his consciousness, the first thought he had was of the gulls.

Well, maybe not his  _first_ thought. His actual first thought went to a soul-search-y part of his mind that he generally attempted to avoid that wondered if a man with as much blood on his hands as he undoubtedly did was allowed in whatever form of 'heaven' there was.

He wasn't certain if he was alive. For all purposes that he could remember, he shouldn't have been.

Why shouldn't he have been, exactly?

He couldn't remember.

He didn't think he cared, really.

And yet, that stubborn, pain-in-the-ass part of his brain tried anyways.

He couldn't feel anything around him. It was almost as if he had simply ceased to exist, his body numb to any possible sensation surrounding him.

And yet, there were the waves.

The waves pulled Clint back.

An ebb and a flow.

A river.

An ebb and a flow.

A hand. A case.

Ebb and flow.

The pain.

_The pain._

And just as the thought ricocheted through his mind, he felt the world again.

He would have been perfectly fine never feeling a damn thing again.

Clint's eyes snapped open as he seized with a sudden need for air as the onslaught of what felt like an over-vamped current of electricity ran through him. His vision tilted and swirled maddeningly as his eyelids drew wide open against the sensations running through him.

Dark.

It was dark.

Why was it dark?

A harsh, grating cough wracked his frame, a sudden surge of water expelling from his lips as his eyes blew even wider in confusion and agony.

_Where was he?_

He'd stopped moving. The sound of water no longer swamped him, and yet he could still hear it, the ebb and flow of waves breaking through the back of his mind. There was something gritty beneath his back as he seized with another dry heave, the breath refusing to come to him. Sand. Or rock? Why was he in the sand?

And why did he feel like he'd been run through a wood grinder?

Maybe he had been.

He'd be lying if he said it hadn't almost happened at least once before.

The pain grew tenfold as he frantically tried to stop the seizing, his muscles tensing and relaxing too fast to regulate in any way. There was something wet and tacky on his forehead and his arms and his face and in his eyes and he couldn't see,  _he couldn't see—_

A small pinprick of a memory surfaced then, and he latched onto it as best he could as he attempted to make sense of it.

There had been a mission. Something important, he assumed.

Something very, very cold.

And something incredibly wrong.

The hacking coughs subsided slightly as he gasped for breath, the air frigid and scraping roughly at his throat as it stuttered in and out of his lungs. He screwed his eyes shut, the moisture running steadily from them only dimly registering for him. Only one thing was dominating his thoughts.

He should be dead.

And he was absolutely, undoubtedly certain of that fact.

How was he certain?

What did he  _do_?

There was a pounding in his head, the rhythm growing louder and harder to ignore as he fought for breath. He hadn't had to actually  _fight_ for something as natural as breath for a very, very long time.

It terrified him.

The pounding increased, and he lifted a shaking hand to cover his ear in a futile attempt of staving it off as his vision clouded and he shut the world out desperately.

He wasn't certain how long he had blacked out again after that first reintroduction to reality. But, black out he had, for when he reopened his eyes, the darkness had deepened. He wasn't certain if it meant it was later than when he had first come to or if he was simply imagining it, but he really couldn't care less.

Taking careful measures to move as little as possible, Clint blinked resolutely in an attempt of adjusting his sight to the darkness, his hand curling slightly into the gritty sand beneath him.

He was on land, that much he knew.

But where?

The archer let his head loll to the side, the thrum of pain that jolted from the simple movement causing him to cough once again. He suppressed it as best he could as he desperately tried to search for a clue as to where he was, his body shaking with the effort of holding back the spasms.

There was an imposing wall of what looked like shale and boulder several feet from him that ran the length of his vision, the height exaggerated as it tilted away, the slight incline giving the illusion of distance.

And that was all he took in before he gave back in to the drumming in his head as his breath practically rattled in his chest. His hand remained pressed to his ear, as it had been lord-knew-how-long-ago by now, and he weakly pressed further against his head.

But the pounding persisted, the steady thrum getting louder and louder—

And growing hypnotically rhythmic, like heavy footfalls falling in an empty hallway. The pounding was joined by a crinkle, and a crunch, and he would have given anything to just  _make it all stop—_

And then his hand fell away from his ear, and the pounding receded.

But the crunch did not.

The sound of gravel after a rainfall. Of rock and earth. Of solid pavement.

Something jogged his brain into action then as the realization struck him.

The noises weren't simply  _like_ footfalls.

They  _were_ footfalls.

Offbeat, somewhat limping footfalls.

Clint forced himself to lift his head as he wheezed out a breath in an attempt to look wildly around for the source of the noise. He barely managed to lift it a centimeter before he was forced to let it drop once again.

Someone was nearby. And by the sound of it, they were in a hurry.

The first thought to strike him was to call for help, but something made him pause. Whoever it was could have been whoever had put him in… whatever state he apparently seemed to be in.

Granted, he was relatively certain there was no worse that could be done than what he was feeling now.

And  _yet_ , in the end, the choice was not his to make.

As per frikkin' usual.

A new wave of nausea rushed through him as he opened his mouth, and suddenly, a horribly loud retch left him in place of words as he curled into himself against a new bout of dry heaves.

He lost track of the world around him for some time as he focused solely on stopping the  _agony, and why was there so much pain, where was Natasha, what had he done—_

"Hey!"

A voice.

There was a voice.

Clint sucked in a hollow breath as he rode out the pain, a sudden dim sense of morbid fascination coming over him as he spotted a shimmering pool of red that had grown beneath him during his impromptu stay.

Huh.

And didn't it seem oddly familiar somehow.

The voice was back, closer this time. He inclined his head slightly as he strained his ringing ears, the muffled silence of the left one not escaping his notice. It was a man's voice. From the top of the wall. Suspicious and cautiously neutral.

"You okay down there? That didn't sound so good, you need a hand?"

_He knew that voice._

How did he know it? He'd heard it thousands of times, he  _knew it!_ But he couldn't think, he couldn't  _think—_

There was a palpable amount of guarded tension in the voice when it spoke again. "Hello? Where are—"

And suddenly, the name connected with the voice as it rammed its way across his memory.

He was hallucinating.

He had to be.

There was no way. Absolutely no  _way_ that could have been who he thought it was.

And yet, if it was...

The old Barton luck had finally,  _finally_ given up on completely screwing him over and let him have a freebie for once in his miserable life, it seemed.

Clint might have sobbed with relief at the connection, and honestly, he would never have been able to say he had ever given a single damn. That voice meant safety.

That voice meant he wouldn't die alone.

Digging deep into what little was left of his resolve, Clint lifted his chin to tilt his face further off of the ground, the sand or gravel or whatever the hell it was stuck into his cheek as he squinted up into the darkness as best he could, his vision swimming distractingly. There was a silhouette outlined by the ambient light of what Clint now knew was one hell of a skyline. The sight gave him the extra push he needed, and before he could give in to the cough threatening to re-consume him, he gave a hoarse, stuttering shout.

" _R-Rogers_?"

There was a long pause, too long, in which Clint thought for certain he had been wrong. A delusion, wishful thinking, anything but reality. There was no way it could have been Steve. Hell,  _Clint_ didn't even know where he was, and he thought it was Captain frikkin' America himself staring down into the darkness at him?

But then, from the top of the wall, an incredulous, aghast question rang sharply through the night.

" _Clint_?"

Steve.

Oh, dear god, that was  _Steve_.

Clint might have laughed. Maybe he cried. Or he might have just dry heaved again. He wasn't entirely sure.

Whatever.

"Clint? Is that seriously—? Hold on, I'm coming down there— _"_

There was an enormous scrabbling noise, the sound of rocks tumbling over themselves interspersed with what Clint would have been thrilled to hear were very un-patriotic curses had he been in a right mind. The scrabbling continued for a few long seconds, and with a sudden thump and a few more heavy footfalls of sprinting pace, there was a man kneeling beside him, alarm and open confusion plain on his face.

And world be damned, it was actually Steve.

Either Clint's vision was toying with him, or there was a thick, white bandage covering more than half of his face, and the thought was strange to Clint somehow, but he found he couldn't quite focus on the odd fact as Steve spoke, his voice full of horrified disbelief.

" _Holy_ — Clint, what the hell happened here? You're—" There was a pause as the man struggled for words, his gaze sweeping over the downed archer. At a loss, Steve simply chose to reach for Clint's shoulders, offering him a bit more support than the loose ground beneath him. The archer snapped his eyes shut and gave a short, sharp cry at the movement, and Steve froze, his hands hovering uncertainly. Opening an eye blearily, Clint caught sight of the super soldier staring openly at something he couldn't see, outright shock and disgust brimming in his eyes.

Was  _Steve Rogers_  worried?

Nah, he never worried about anything.

That was definitely not concern in his eyes.

Before Steve could open his mouth again, Clint was opening his own, his voice thin and strained to all hell as he coughed out a shaky laugh.

"'f all th' gin joints in th' world…"

Steve's brow furrowed as his hand disappeared from sight to dig through his pocket for something. It was only then that Clint dimly realized the man was wearing what looked like an old, threadbare sweatshirt and sweatpants, the hood draped across his shoulders. His tense, commandeering voice brought Clint's focus back, his unintentional zone out either unnoticed or at the bottom of Steve's current priority list.

"—not a particularly pleasant  _crowd_ in this gin joint, apparently. Who did this? Clint? Are they nearby?"

There was an unspoken command that Steve was so well known for in the query, and yet Clint couldn't find it in himself to want to obey. His eyes tracked across the tense crease of his comrade's forehead as a cellphone came into view in the man's hand. Instead of answering, Clint found himself mumbling in confusion, still in disbelief of his luck.

"Y' c'me here oft'n?

Steve was holding the phone to his ear now as he raised his eyebrows, the agitated worry in his eyes still brimming in what should have been alarming amounts to Clint. And yet, he found he couldn't quite care.

"Actually, yeah," Steve responded shortly. "It doesn't matter, stay still—"

But Clint had to know. It was one of his astoundingly charming qualities.

He was a rife pain in the ass when it came to not knowing something.

"Wh're is here, 'zactly?"

Steve wasn't having any of it as he stabbed dutifully at the phone in his hands, his eyes flickering back to whatever it was that had revolted him so much just seconds prior. "Only bike path on the coast I've found that's deserted after ten." He shot an agitated glance to Clint's face then, stone cold anger suddenly in his expression. "Apparently not deserted enough. Clint, I need to know if who did this is  _still here."_

Ah.

So that was it.

Of course, Steve had gone out in his sweatsuit plenty of times during the night for a short run only to return shortly thereafter, disgruntled and narrow eyed from the flash of cameras and the pursuit of rabid photographers. He'd taken to simply exercising in the gym of the Stark tower, but it appeared he had discovered a barren enough place to vent his energy.

Thank  _god._

A jolt ran through him at the sudden appearance of a memory, and he was groping for Steve's arm in the darkness as he stammered out what he hoped was a coherent sentence.

"'Nother man."  _Who was he, there had been someone else, something important, what had he been—_

The name jumped out to him then, and he might have physically started at the suddenness of the thought. "Doctor."

"I've got it, Clint, I'm calling for an ambulance now—"

Clint interrupted brusquely, his voice choked as he refused another cough. "N', n't that doctor. 'Nother man. In the river." He stared blearily up at Steve, practically delirious from the pain and frustration at trying to come across clear. "H-Holden. Lost him in th' river."

Clarification rushed through Steve's expression then, and the super soldier stared in utter disbelief. "You were in the  _river?"_

Steve was speaking again, and yet the meaning of the words didn't quite sink in for Clint as he shivered from another short spasm. He stared openly at Steve's lips as they moved, every other word or so filtering through his brain as he watched dutifully. He must have zoned out for a bit too long, as there was a short, sharp tap at his cheek that had him zeroing back in on the words, and he refocused on the slightly…  _panicked_ face of one Steve Rogers. Clint was vaguely surprise to note that the sweatshirt was gone from Steve's frame, a taught tee shirt the only thing keeping the night's chill at bay now. There was an odd bulge of what looked like more bandages across his torso, but Clint's focus slipped easily away. The phone remained pressed to his ear, held up by his shoulder as he held both hands firmly on…his arm?

"— with me, buddy, I gotcha." There was a pause as Steve's eyes shifted back to Clint's arm, and against his better judgement, Clint followed his gaze before Steve could deter him. The mystery of the missing sweatshirt was solved as Clint saw the object bunched firmly in Steve's grip around his arm, and yet, the already blood soaked material was not enough to cover all of the damage that Clint knew he would never forget in whatever remained of his miserable lifetime.

He was about 90% certain that bone was not meant to see daylight.

Or, moonlight, as it were.

Eh. Details.

Clint stared openly at the gleam of white shimmering sickeningly in a pool of red so deep Clint almost couldn't see it in the darkness as the sweatshirt shifted slightly in Steve's grip, the pressure of it pressing against the wound barely registering as an odd, tingling numbness ran through Clint. Steve was speaking again, his voice directed towards the phone this time.

"— a dispatch to the wave breaker by the tenth mile marker on the bike path off of Linstern pier. No, I haven't checked, but he's in rough—"

Clint chose that moment to convulse again, the sight of his own bone finally registering with such a strong sense of  _wrong_  that he felt a whole new wave of nausea overcome him. Steve finished speaking frantically into the phone before quite literally tossing it aside, his hands leaving the saturated sweatshirt and moving to press against Clint's shoulder's as he shook. The all too familiar darkness had begun to swamp over his vision again as he knew he hit his limit, but Clint shoved it aside as best he could as he swallowed thickly. There was still something he had to do.

Something important.

He had to warn them.

_They had to know._

Steve was speaking to him again, voice low and carefully controlled. "We'll get through this, Barton, just breathe. It's alright, they've got an ambulance on the way, you hear me? They'll fix you up good as new—"

Clint opened his mouth and hoarsely mumbled the first coherent thing he could.

"S.H.I.E.L.D's a buncha traitorous assholes."

Steve actually spluttered a baffled, morbid laugh at that, his eyes riveted on Clint and the top half of his face frozen in surprise while the bottom half twitched with the burst of the unexpected reaction. Clint blinked sluggishly at him with what he hoped was a glare. Steve was speaking again, his voice was low and level, and Clint focused as best he could on the words. That was Steve's command voice. It usually meant he was about to deal some serious shit.

"We know, Clint. We've taken care of it. Don't worry, just focus on staying awake—"

He interrupted him with a sharp cough. "N' you didn't. Been tryin' t' kill me since… since I…"

The words trailed off as his train of thought derailed, and Steve called his name sharply, a faint trace of alarm in his voice. There was something else. Something important. Incredibly important. He needed to know, he had to know—

Ah, that was right.

"— _Clint,_ look at me, Clint. Stay awake for just a little bit longer for me, okay? You can tell me lat—"

"Fury's dead," Clint blurted.

And with that final bit of crucial information passed on, Clint ignored a captain's orders and promptly passed out for what he sincerely hoped would be the last time.

* * *

 


	13. A Little Bit Famous

* * *

 

_"How do seven beers sound? Seven sounds good to me. I ain't buying for any lightweights—"_

_"Joker. Joker had eyes."_

_"Stand down, Hawkeye, we need cover!"_

_"Neil, get down-!"_

There were voices.

Words.

Important words.

Were they?

He couldn't tell.

Faces. Names. Shouts and mutters, a laugh and a yell of pain. Hazy images of red-soaked snow. Browns and greens and the snap of twig and bone. Water. Too much water.

He was drowning.

But he wasn't, there was air, and it stung, it burned, he couldn't breathe—

_"— need to restrain him, he's thrashing too much—"_

_"Calm down, Clint, I'm right here, let them work—"_

There was something in his chest, he had to cough, had to  _breathe._

_"— intubation needs to be stable, we need a clear path for operation room A24, prepped stat—"_

There had to be meaning to the jumble of noises he was hearing. But whatever meaning they might have held, he honestly couldn't tell. All he knew was fire and motion and heat and cold and the whistling of the wind and the roar of water.

Then there was something rubbing at his arm, and all thought (futile as it was) erupted into a burst of white.

Someone was shouting.

Someone was yelling.

And someone was screaming.

 _God,_ it was annoying.

He wished they would stop.

"— _anesthesiologist, pronto! Damn it, where's the transfusion equipment I—"_

_"— losing him, people, let's get to work—"_

Someone was… lost?

_"— timing though, infection is worse—"_

Infection?

That sounded… unpleasant.

" _— need an external fixator, the bone isn't _—"__

He would have thought the effort to strain and try to understand more would be a suitable one, but a sudden, sharp jab on his bicep followed shortly by a rush of burning numbness convinced him otherwise.

He wasn't entirely sure what it was he was meant to be feeling.

So he stopped.

He drifted.

It was a long while before he knew any more. How long, he couldn't be sure. All he knew was the haze of images flickering across his mind.

A face, a moment, a memory: all flitting in and out of his focus, each making less sense than the last.

A boy, grinning down at him as he showed off his newly perfected kata form courtesy of the sword master, the dim lights of the circus tent the only backlight they had from their perch high in the rafters.

A woman, hair red as the rising sun itself, staring him down through his own scope as he hesitated, her face stoic in cold acceptance and disguised panic.

A man, thrusting a rifle into his hands and blandly ordering him to sit down and shut up before he broke protocol and took him down with a sack of flour, rules be damned.

Warm eyes in all three faces.

Warm.

Too warm.

Burning. He was burning.  _He was burning, why was he burning, dear god make it stop—_

_"— fever is spiking, the infection must have—"_

" _— a code red, folks, you know what to do. Second verse, same as the first—"_

And then, there was cold.

Cold.

_Too cold!_

"— _n't you dare, Barton, you still have something to tell me, yeah? Don't— nurse!"_

_Barton?_

He latched on to the word without fully knowing why. It brought him some sense of…  _something_ in the absolute, encroaching  _nothing_ he couldn't seem to escape.

There was another wave of freezing cold that passed over him, and suddenly, all of the sensation simply stopped.

It felt  _incredibly wrong._

And yet… he didn't fight it.

_"—mn it, vitals are dropping—"_

_"— on my watch, too much went into—"_

_"—n't_ **_do_ ** _this, Clint—"_

But the possibility of simply leaving the noise and the sensation behind was too alluring, and with a feeling not unlike sighing, he drew back into the gaping black void at the back of his consciousness and let himself drift.

Time had passed when he pulled back out of his mind again.

He wasn't sure how he knew, but he  _knew._

The senseless void he'd found himself in had receded slightly, and the occasional prickle of feeling ran through him with a suddenness and foreignness that he couldn't quite comprehend.

There was a distant feeling of pain.

But he was close enough to the beckoning darkness to simply slip back under and ignore it like the complete child he was.

Sounds that he couldn't be 100% certain were outside of his head broke through every now and again, and they drew him away from the muffled comfort of the lack of sensation just to try to make out a meaning. Sometimes he caught it. Most times he didn't.

"— _tasha, I can take it from here. Get some sleep."_

_"I'll sleep when I get an answer."_

A sigh. Weariness. Exasperation. He couldn't tell.

_"Coffee, then."_

There were moments he heard other voices. One in particular caught his attention for significantly longer. A deep, soothing tone, intellectual and calming.

Did he know it?

It certainly  _felt_ familiar.

An image of a quiet, unassuming man with dark hair mottled grey flashed through his mind, simultaneously clashing with an image dominated with green.

" _—'a big confusion in this country over what we want verses what we need...you need food. You want a chocolate sundae.''"_ A pause. A tired huff. " _Not entirely wrong. But not entirely applicable in the moment, is it?"_

He knew that quote.

How did he know it?

He didn't even know his own  _name_ at moments.

Pages rustling, and then the voice again. Quieter, more somber.

"" _Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else.""_ The pause. When the voice returned, there was a neutral, light tone to it. " _Fits a bit more, don't you think?"_ Pages rustled again, and something clicked in his brain.

A book.

Someone was reading to him.

He didn't have a chance to ponder long on the matter, as a throb of something incredibly uncomfortable ran through his chest, spreading to his arm in a slow wave.

There was a groan.

And a startled hum.

And someone saying that name again.

_"Clint?"_

But he ignored it, refusing to surface just quite yet when there was still the tantalizing tug from the darkness at the bag of his consciousness.

So he gave in.

He'd have made it a point to enjoy it more had he known it was the last time he'd feel it.

* * *

Clint had woken up in more hospitals than hotels in his life time.

The thought was, frankly, quite depressing.

Still, being such a hospital regular, he knew exactly where he was when he happened to wake up in one. There was a certain imposing atmosphere one could glean from just the senses alone that gave more than enough away.

This exact moment was no different.

The starchiness of the sheets were the first giveaway for him, followed shortly by the frankly overwhelming smell of antiseptic. There was something pinching his nose, and a long, low hiss followed by an influx of air that frankly tickled the insides of his nostrils a little  _too_ much more than confirmed what he thought the feeling was attributed to. A low, monotonous beep of the machinery somewhere to his left filtered into his consciousness slowly, and an unbidden furrow made its way across is brow at the sound as a long, low throb ebbed and flowed through his head. There was a crisp clarity to the noise that he couldn't remember hearing for some time now.

They must have put some new aids in for him when he was out.

That was a plus, he supposed.

Exactly who  _they_ were or  _why_ he was out, however…

There was a sense of muddled numbness that had settled over him at some point upon his full awakening, and he reveled in the simple feeling of  _absolutely nothing_ for a few blissful minutes, his brain refusing to become alert enough to acknowledge the fact that he was, indeed, in a hospital. The sooner he recognized the fact, the sooner he'd have to address it.

He wasn't quite ready for that yet.

There was a hiss from the machinery, and a burning feeling shot through his arm with a suddenness that surprised him. The surprise didn't last long however, as his senses were suddenly swamped by what felt like cotton, softening the edge to just about  _everything_ and filling him with a weary, lethargic feeling, almost sending him back into the unconsciousness he had only just left behind. It was only then that something in the back of his head whispered common sense.

_Must've done something pretty screwed up to get you on the good stuff, Barton._

A new noise drew his attention away from the jumbled mess that was his thoughts, and he zeroed in on the shifting sound as best he could through the haze. He didn't have to focus for long, as a voice suddenly broke through the fog, clear as day.

"Clint."

It wasn't a question. It was a statement. An affirmation.

" _Clint."_

Natasha.

Something in the back of his mind supplied the name.

"Clint, I know you're awake. I can see the vitals."

Oh, wait. Clint? That was him, wasn't it? He should probably respond.

But he was so damn  _comfortable._

_Maybe if he just stayed silent she'd let him go back to sleep…_

"If you don't open your eyes in three seconds, I'm calling in Stark to tell you one of his stories from his MIT days. In detail."

Wait.

Oh,  _hell_ no.

Clint shifted ever so slightly against the pillows he could now feel supporting his back, and he grimaced as he dutifully blinked his eyes open. The swirl of white over him was only disorienting for a moment before it settled into something slightly more steady. He rolled his head languidly to the side, and sure enough, Natasha came into view.

She was sitting in a stiff hospital chair, her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward and regarded him with carefully blank eyes, the hoodie draping over her frame practically swallowing her whole. Her fiery hair was pulled into a taught bun atop her head, and her legs were drawn up to cross in the chair. She looked like she hadn't slept in days.

That was the detail that finally pulled Clint out of his reverie.

A tired Natasha was a vulnerable Natasha. And Natasha didn't do vulnerable.

When she caught his eye, a small grin played on her lips, and she leaned back slightly with a barely perceptible sigh. He stared at her for a few moments, his eyes drifting lazily back and forth between hers as he took in the little details she unknowingly offered him. The crease between her eyebrows. The glint in her eye. The tension in her jaw. The stiffness of her neck.

She was worried.

Clint opened his mouth to address her after another silent minute ticked by, but he found himself shutting it again in lieu of speaking. He wasn't entirely sure what to say, really.

Usually it was 'sorry' when he woke up in this type of situation.

_But for what?_

His brain re-fired with a spontaneuity that caused him to start slightly, and suddenly, he remembered. The drop mission.

HYDRA.

The sample.

The city.

The van.

The river.

Steve.

He'd certainly had a lively week, it seemed.

Natasha looked at him solemnly for another long moment before unfolding herself from the chair and standing slowly, her sock clad feet planting themselves firmly on the floor in one fluid movement. Before Clint could so much as trace her movements with his eyes, she had grabbed a small glass of water from a little end table beside his bed and offered it to him. He blinked at it in some confusion, the grim, taught line of her lips barely registering for him as she spoke softly.

"Don't even try to grab it yourself."

Clint shifted his gaze slowly up to her face before settling it back on the glass hovering in front of him. The thought of water suddenly struck him as an oddly incredible one (and yet combated with a spike of panic at the memory of the roar of rapids), as his throat chose that exact moment to itch. He inclined his head slightly, and, taking it as the cue it was, Natasha tilted the cup forward.

It was lukewarm and tasted like minerals, but Clint couldn't find it in himself to care. It got rid of the desert his throat had apparently become, and that was enough for him.

When he'd drained the entire glass, Natasha pulled it away, a satisfied expression flitting across her face as she silently settled the cup back on the counter. With that, she turned back to him, her arms weaving themselves across each other in front of her torso as she turned slightly to lean against the bed. She regarded him quietly, her face impassive as her eyes roved over his form. It was only then that Clint looked down.

There was a thick swath of stark white binding wrapped firmly around his torso, the pressure of the bandages barely registering for him. His arm was stiffly held in place by a plaster cast propped well out of the way of his torso, the binding reaching up and clear past his elbow. A wiry, complicated matrix of metal bars ran above the cast, the occasional odd pin protruding from the bottom of it and disappearing into the plaster. There was a smattering of bandages plastered up and down the length of his other arm, and by the feel of it, they were layered thickly over his left leg as well. His hands were wrapped delicately, a slightly uncomfortable starchiness on his palms giving away the pressure clots firmly holding the torn skin together. He shifted his left leg slightly as an odd weight made itself known through his haze, and he felt the give of yet  _another_  swaddle of plaster encasing his calf and foot. A deep furrow carved itself into his brow, but he abruptly slackened his features again when the action brought an entire  _new_ set of bandages to his awareness. He raised his non-plastered arm absentmindedly, his fingers brushing lightly against a thick pad of material taped to the majority of his forehead. He let his hand fall back to the mattress with a flop, and he stared up at Natasha for a long, tense moment. He shut his eyes and inhaled deeply past the muted twinge in his chest before releasing it on a burst of an exhale and speaking hoarsely.

"Canada sucks."

There was no reply, and Clint cracked an eye open to observe his companion's reaction. She was staring impassively at him, the crease between her brows significantly deeper now. When she caught his eye, she shook her head slowly, looking away for barely a second to sigh before uncrossing her arms and levering herself up to sit on the edge of the bed frame. Her hand stretched to a small call button on the side of the machine next to her, and she deftly flicked the switch that would relay that he was awake to the nurses manning the waiting room. She gave him a piercing look then before speaking, low and even.

"Add it to your list."

Clint quirked a lethargic grin at her then, and when he spoke, the genuine relief in his voice nearly bowled  _himself_ over.

"'S good to see you, Nat."

Her face morphed into the expression he knew few had probably seen, and she gave him a surprisingly gentle grin as she settled her hand lightly on his knee. She was silent for a long moment as he simply sat there, the light pressure of her hand offering an illogical amount of comfort. A long, slow nod was all she gave him in the end.

"Likewise."

The warmth in her voice swamped over him, and he shut his eyes as an overwhelming wave of contentment rushed through him.

He was alive.

He'd  _survived._

Maybe Holden had been ri—

The sudden thought brought him to a halt, and his eyes snapped open as he briskly addressed Natasha.

"Doctor?"

Natasha's brow furrowed, a slight twinge of concern running through her eyes. "You want me to call in the doctor?"

Clint shook his head as best he could, clearing his throat slightly as he forced himself to clarify. "'nother man was in the river. Doctor."

A small "ah" of understanding allowed him to relax slightly as she tilted her head in a small nod. He shut his eyes again, and there was a creaking noise as she shifted her position to sit more comfortably at his side. "A man IDed as a Curtis Holden was found further out of the city after they brought you in. Steve sent out a search team after he…. after he called us about what had happened. He said you told him there was someone with you. They found him out cold in the entrance to the sewer system on the outskirts of the city." There was a pause and an incredibly faint snort that Clint almost convinced himself he had made up. "He hadn't appeared very happy with the idea when he woke up." She paused for a moment, her tone morphing into something more speculative. "There was a storm front that came through the city for a few days here. River gained a few feet, they say the current was knocked off course a bit. Could explain why you showed up where you did and Holden got the… less glamorous beaching."

Before Clint could so much as breathe, Natasha was continuing.

"He was given a clear bill of health yesterd—Thursday afternoon."

That had Clint opening his eyes to regard her carefully. "Thursday-?"

She gave him a slightly sympathetic look. "I'm not going to sugarcoat, Clint. You've been out for a little more than a week at this point."

He stared at her, his mind refusing to grasp onto her words in full. A  _week?_

That was impossible!

Some small part of his brain accepted the fact, though. He'd had a hell of a lot of damage to recuperate from.

And by the feel of it, he still had some time to go before he'd be on his feet again.

Another thought struck him then, and a short, sharp sense of panic coursed through his veins. "Was there a case with him?" She deftly flicked out a hand and pushed back on his chest as he made to sit up. The movement was firm, but gentle, and he leaned back to fall against the pillows again as he stared up at her imploringly. She was speaking before his head had stopped spinning from the movement, but he still latched on to every word.

"They discovered a briefcase not far from where Curtis was found. He…  _insisted_  it was important and refused to let it out of his sight the entire time he was under care. He's had it handcuffed to his wrist until he can "take care of it," he says." She paused then, regarding him with a slightly raised eyebrow. "He refused to say what it was."

Clint let his head fall back again with an enormous exhale, the breath morphing into a loose, low laugh at the end.

He'd  _won._

The laugh diminished into a slightly hysterical giggle, and he untangled his hand from the sheets to run it over his face wearily. The sound had no sooner escaped his throat when a dry voice came from the door.

"Oh, wow. They've got him on the good stuff, I see. Anybody got a camera?"

As per usual, Stark's voice made it through the door before he did, and he strolled into the small room as if he personally owned the contract to the building. Honestly, Clint wouldn't have been surprised if he did. Tony's hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his dark jeans, and his tinted sunglasses made it impossible for Clint to gauge just what his actual reaction was to the sight of him.

Before Clint could so much as think of a comeback, there was another figure walking into his room. Steve followed close on Tony's heels, his eyes mid roll as he came into view. There was a large paper bag held loosely in his one hand and a tray balancing two steaming cups of something in the other. He looked close to berating Tony, but when his eyes landed on Clint, his expression shifted. The super soldier stepped up to the other side of the hospital bed, giving Natasha a companionable nod and handing off one of the drinks to her as he did so. Clint watched in some dull surprise as she accepted the cup and returned the nod with an easy grin.

When had  _that_ happened?

Tony was regarding Clint critically as he leaned nonchalantly against the wall at the foot of the bed, his head tilted so as to look over the sunglasses still perched on his face.

"Did you get a dye job without consulting me? I'm hurt, Barton."

Clint stared openly for a full ten seconds before simply settling for a half hearted blink.

He had plenty he wanted to say in response.

He just couldn't quite get past the sudden shock that had overtaken his brain at the presence of more people in his tiny room.

Natasha was speaking then, and Clint shifted his focus to her face as she nodded to the super soldier, turning the attention away from the shit-eating grin on Tony's face.

"You're lucky our lovable moron here decided to break  _his_ orders for strict bed rest and go for a little jog that night when he found you. They weren't too happy when they found out."

Steve looked mildly affronted as he gave Natasha a withering look. "I needed to move, Natasha, I said I was fine. 'Super soldier', remember? Weird habit of healing quickly."

"Well, what  _you_ say and what  _they_ say are two very different things. You looked like Clint  _literally_ a week ago and you just… decide to go for a brisk, brief, eight mile run."

Tony gave a stuttering bark of a slightly giddy laugh at that, and Steve shot him a look of his own that promptly had the man shutting his mouth with a click and holding his hands up in a peace-making gesture.

Steve shook his head somberly, the coffee carefully balanced in his hand as he shifted in place. "I'm not going to apologize, it that's what you're pressing for. I wouldn't have found Clint if I hadn't. That counts for more than enough."

Tony broke in there, his voice tinged with well-meaning snark. "Ah, yeah, honestly, I'm still in complete disbelief about the chances of that. My theory is infinitely more plausible than "I stumbled upon him" and all that bull."

"Tony, your theory involves-"

"Look, it fits. You're Mr. Big-shot-team-leader guy, why wouldn't you have a sixth sense for finding us lil' lost, battered souls, hmm? How did  _you_ find him before anyone else?"

" _No one_ goes anywhere near the bayside there. It smells like rotting fish on a  _good_ day."

It was quiet for all of a second before Tony let out a bland "huh," following up with a short sniff. "Explains the infection complications, I guess."

Clint gawked at them openly, the words going straight over his head.

He was sure he'd have time to draw the whole story out from them later.

For now, he was just damn  _confused._

He wasn't given much of a chance to ponder the exchange when Steve was speaking again, his voice just as low as Natasha's had been and directed at Clint this time, a warm, slightly sad grin on his face.

"It's good to see you awake, Clint. Had us worried there for a while."

Clint stared dumbly up at him for an unnervingly long seven seconds before he started, his brain re-firing slightly as he cleared his throat.

"Uh… sorry?"

Well.

That was certainly intelligent.

Steve's brow furrowed, and after seeing Natasha already staring at Clint with a neutral expression, he exchanged a quick, sharp glance with Tony, who returned the look with an almost laughable look of bewilderment. The captain turned his focus back onto Clint, his eyebrows drawn together as he scrutinized him critically, the bag in his hands finding its way to settle on the counter beside the bed. He had just opened his mouth to continue when yet another new voice broke into the relatively silent hospital room.

" _Who threatens the safety of my comrades?"_

Clint winced at the booming volume of Thor's voice as the Asgardian entered the room full stride, his complete battle regalia donning his form and Mjolnir dangling from his wrist. His hair was windswept, his face slightly frazzled, and Clint couldn't help but get the feeling the man had only just flown in. He stood in the doorway, his eyes immediately falling on Clint, and something akin to cold fury sparked in his eye. The god shot searching looks to the other slightly stunned team members in the room, his voice suddenly lower and significantly more threatening than before.

"I have only just been given the news. Who has done this indignity? I swear to you, they shall have no mercy from me by the time the day is done-"

"Woah, slow down there, He-Man. It's under control. You don't need to bash any skulls in today," Tony interrupted, his hand coming up to swipe away his sunglasses and fold them neatly into his pocket in one smooth movement. Clint was surprised to see the same weariness from Natasha's face on his, and he couldn't quite prevent the twinge of confusion that ran through him.

They'd stayed up.

For the better part of a week, most likely.

For him.

_Why?_

As Tony resolutely attempted to talk down Thor, Bruce's head suddenly popped into sight around the Asgardian's form in the doorway, the man's face carefully schooled into as patient an expression as he could muster. His benign voice held a hint of strain that would have been laughable had Clint not been so drugged to the gills.

"Guess who just arrived."

Thor spared him a glance before shifting out of the doorframe and allowing the scientist to enter before turning his focus back onto Tony. Bruce gave him a slight nod of thanks as he made his way directly to the machinery Clint had heard earlier, giving Clint a warm smile and a nod. And suddenly, he was nonchalantly scanning the blinking numbers and talking, his fingers skimming almost unconsciously over the screens of the machinery.

"Good to see your eyes open. They said your vitals are finally stable, Clint, so that's a good sign. It was touch and go for a while, but it looks like you should be on the mend here pretty soon. Your arm was… well, honestly, unsurprisingly infected, but as of last night, the fever broke and you appear to be holding steady. Just don't go busting almost all your bones and losing half of your blood again any time soon, yeah?"

Clint missed the bit of humor entirely as he stared intently at Bruce, his brain trying and failing to piece together a plausible explanation for what was happening. His eyes roved away from the scientist and landed on each person in the room in turn, finally settling on Natasha. Tony and Thor quit their bickering in the background then at the sudden silence, and suddenly all of the eyes in the room were on him. He darted his gaze over them again, picking up on the sudden spike of concern in Steve's eye and the wary hesitation in Tony and Thor's. Bruce's soft voice dimly registered with him again, and he blinked before turning to look at him.

"Clint?"

Steve shot Bruce a glance then at the archer's prolonged silence, his voice deep and carefully apprehensive. "Is he alright? Is it his head?"

Bruce didn't take his eyes off Clint as a frown grew on his face. "I'm not sure. He should be fine. It might be the morphine-"

The archer shook himself slightly then, and he forced himself to speak.

"Why… are you all…  _here_?"

The room went still when his hoarse words sunk in, and suddenly the stares were a little more unnerving. There was a surprised sort of rigidity in the group's backs, and Clint looked from one to the other in mounting confusion, his muddled brain trying and desperately failing to reach a conclusion. Shocked glances were exchanged through the team, and suddenly Steve was leaning forward, confusion in his eyes.

"Why wouldn't we be? Clint, you almost  _died-"_

Clint lifted his good hand to wave him off as he interrupted. "Yeah, that's nothing new. But… you're  _all here."_  He stared earnestly at Steve, silently cursing himself and the morphine for hindering his communication skills as the super soldier's confused expression deepened further, some other emotion tainting the expression at Clint's nonchalant response to yet another reminder of just how close he'd come to not making it. He pressed on. "I mean, thanks, it's, uh, nice to see you guys and we should…. catch up or something, but… you're…. well,  _here_ …and I don't…" He finished lamely, his own brow furrowing in frustration.

Why couldn't they understand?

He'd woken up plenty of times in the hospital before. More times than not, he had been alone. Sometimes, Natasha would be there. Other times it had been Phil. Sometimes all three of them had been laid out in beds next to each other, each sporting their own respective battle scars and laughing until it hurt at their own stupidity. Except for Coulson, of course, he generally looked on in disapproval.

But he still barely knew these people he was supposed to be a "team" with.

And they were all here.

It was… oddly comforting, in a way.

Thor stepped forward then, his expression significantly less furious than it had been earlier as he looked down at the archer, his voice blessedly lowered in volume as he rumbled.

"Do you not wish to see us?"

Clint blinked owlishly at him before waving off the question with a loose hand. "No, it's not that! It's just…" He paused, his eyes roving back to Natasha. Of all of the team, she looked the most understanding, her expression surprisingly gentle as she looked serenely back at him. He turned back to the others, his tongue finally forming the words he'd been searching for.

"It's just… I'm not used to it."

And finally, it sunk in for them.

Clint blinked at the prolonged silence, and he found it much simpler to just turn his focus onto the ceiling instead of the piercing gazes of the team around him as it grew to be a bit too awkward for him.

Steve was sitting forward again then, his eyes carefully neutral as he spoke reassuringly. "Clint, you're a part of this team. I'm not sure what that  _means_ to you, entirely, but like it or not, we're all involved now. You're one of us."

Clint huffed a slightly drug induced laugh at that. "'s definitely gonna take some adjusting to the whole 'us' thing."

There was a short pause as Steve seemingly searched for the right words before he settled with a grin. "It's alright if it takes some time to get used to, but just make sure you  _let_ yourself get used to it. Yeah?"

Clint just stared pensively back at him for a moment before turning away, a slight incline of a nod all he gave in response.

And then Tony was stepping in, ever the blessing in disguise he was as a subject changer.

"Well. On that note, anyone wanna up birdbrain's morphine dose and grab some popcorn?"

It was a little worrisome to Clint that none responded right away. Bruce rolled his tired eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose. "Tony…"

"I'm not hearing a no!"

" _No_ , Tony."

The billionaire strut past the bed self assuredly, scooping up a tablet resting on the counter beside the bed and tapping away almost neurotically as he began to ramble. "Fine, fine. Buzzkill. You caused quite a stir of shenanigans, Barton. They've been saying the photos that ended up online have been… have been…"

Clint lolled his head to the side in a futile attempt of bringing Stark into view. "Have been what?"

Tony didn't answer.

And that was one thing Tony never did.

He always had a quip or a snark or just a straight up unintelligible response.

So if there was one thing that unsettled Clint, it was a silent Tony Stark.

The man's face had lost all of its smugness, stone cold shock plastered openly across its features. He was gazing down at the tablet in his grasp, his hand hovering uncertainly over its screen. His eyes never leaving whatever it was he was looking at, he made a loose, wavering gesture for Steve to join him. Steve exchanged an uncertain glance with Bruce before standing and making his way around the bed to stand beside Tony. He spared the man a short, calculating glance before focusing his attention on the screen as well.

His eyebrows shot so high on his forehead Clint was convinced they'd simply take off and fly away.

The image was oddly hilarious to him, and suddenly, he felt a bubble of laughter leave him breathlessly. The room's occupants refocused on him, and Clint gestured helplessly to his eyebrows as the giggles persisted.

He sobered abruptly at the look of horrified awe on Steve's face.

"How did you…"

The captain pulled up short, shaking his head as he ran a hand through his hair, the other hand planting firmly on his hip. Tony had snapped out of whatever haze he had been in and was now tapping relentlessly away at his screen. Clint ignored him, his head tilting almost instinctually as he waited for Steve to continue. Barely a minute passed before he did with a look of utter disbelief.

"How did you  _survive_?"

Clint found himself blinking owlishly at the question, and he paused before adding his two cents with a slightly delirious snicker.

"You're  _definitely_ gonna have to be a lot more specific than that. Gimme a time frame and I'll try my best."

Bruce coughed a terribly obvious laugh from somewhere on his left, but Clint's focus was entirely on Steve as the super soldier shook his head again. He gave a loose gesture to the tablet Stark was  _still_ fiddling with as he elaborated.

"You were practically  _dead_  on that bay overflow. I thought you had just gotten those injuries, but you… you've been…you've had them for..." He shook his head again, disbelief plastered across his face as he stared at Clint. "Whatever the… you were in the middle of a main interstate!"

The _highway_?

How would he know?

It occurred to Clint then that Tony's tablet must have had the pictures online he had only just mentioned. The amount of camera phones around the area of his final showdown with Lucas and HYDRA had been staggering.

The 21st century was a blessing and a curse bundled into one big joke for Clint Barton.

He found himself shrugging slightly, a hiss of oxygen from the machine distracting him momentarily before he spoke. "I knew how to break the fall."

Tony raised an incredulous eyebrow, but surprisingly, it was Thor who spoke first.

"What sort of… 'fall' was this?"

The others shot him a look, and judging by the expressions on Natasha and Bruce's faces, they already knew. It occurred to him that Holden might have recanted their story, but Thor obviously would not have heard any of it.

So, Clint puckered his brow in though at the god's question.

And suddenly, he  _really_ wanted to laugh again.

He'd actually lost count of how many times he had fallen at some point during his stint in Canada. He suppressed the urge, however, and dutifully gave them the rundown.

"I was in a car. The men in the car didn't  _want_ me in the car. So… I fell."

A full minute passed before Tony shook his head and gestured to Clint as he addressed a baffled looking Thor. The man's spine went rigid as Stark explained.

"Ah, Christ… they threw him out of a _moving vehicle_. On a  _freeway._ "

Clint hummed an affirmation, and if Natasha's expression hardened as the others shook their heads disbelievingly, he resolutely ignored it. Tony pressed on, waving his arm slightly as he did.

" _Why,_ man? What did you do to piss these people off?"

Now, that.

That was a bit more difficult.

Before Clint could so much as think of a response, Tony held up a hand, his eyes clouding in thought suddenly as he rambled on.

"Hold up, hold that thought. I'll be right back."

Steve watched him move for the door in confusion, and the surprise echoed in his tone as he addressed the man. "What are you doing?"

Tony glanced over his shoulder, giving Clint a fleeting grin before waving the tablet nonchalantly.

"I've got some pictures to delete from the internet."

And with that, he was gone.

The silence was slightly awkward without Tony's charismatic presence in the room, but Clint didn't mind. He'd had enough noise in the last weeks to appreciate the silence now.

The hush didn't last long, however, as Bruce leaned against the wall beside Thor, who in turn planted Mjolnir firmly on the floor and perched his helmet atop it as he claimed the third chair in the room. Steve was speaking, and Clint found himself practically repeating his movements from the night the captain had found him on the beach.

"Clint… you said something to me before you passed out that night I found you. Something about SHIELD and… well, traitors."

That sobered Clint faster than anything of yet.

He regarded Steve with morbid eyes as he nodded, and after a short second he dragged a hand down his face wearily. "Look, Cap, I'm not sure what I said—"

"It doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that we have it covered."

Clint would have been lying if he had said he didn't believe that for one minute.

He'd almost died, after all.

The thought apparently showed on his face, because suddenly, Natasha was breaking in.

"SHIELD was compromised. A long time ago. It was founded on a base made by—"

"HYDRA."

The interruption clearly surprised Natasha, as her eyes flickered slightly and she shut her mouth slowly. All eyes in the room were turned curiously on Clint as his word rang through the room, and Steve was the first to respond.

"Well. Glad we're on the same page at least."

Clint didn't rise to take the bait at the attempt of humor, choosing instead to stare at the blankets covering his lap. Something else was weighing on his mind, and he found himself speaking before he could stop himself.

"Fury?"

The silence held a rawness to it that Clint didn't quite enjoy as much.

There was an awkward sound of a throat clearing, and Bruce was suddenly speaking, his words addressed to Thor.

"We should… let them catch up. Let's go find Tony."

Thor was silent for a moment before he gave an affirming grumble. Before he left however, he stepped up beside Clint's bed and gave the archer a nod and a surprisingly gentle grin. "I am glad to see you are well, Clinton. I wish you good health."

Clint blinked in slight surprise before he cleared his throat and stammered a thank you in return. It appeared to appease Thor, as he in turn nodded once again before pivoting and striding out the door. Bruce stood beside the frame, and he gave a warm grin of his own before inclining his head. Before he could say anything however, Clint remembered something distantly connected to that grin. He was speaking before Bruce could so much as open his mouth.

"You were reading."

Bruce blinked slightly before giving him a small grin, his arms crossing loosely. "I thought it might have worked to pull you back a bit. You could hear?"

"Some of it."

Clint paused before tacking on a belated addition.

"The important parts, at least."

Bruce's grin wavered slightly, a curious gleam in his eye. "And… which parts were those?"

Clint found himself giving the doctor a tired grin of his own.

"Just the bit about the sundae."

There was a cough of a laugh at that, and Bruce gave him an approving look. Before he could respond, Clint continued.

" _Tuesdays with Morrie_?"

He didn't need the nod of confirmation at the title. He'd known without really… well,  _knowing_ it right off the bat. He gave Bruce a curious look of his own as he spoke slowly.

"One of my favorite books."

Bruce gave him a clearly fake look of surprise. "Is it?"

He paused before shrugging slightly with a surprisingly wry grin. "I had no idea."

Before Clint could process the actual  _sarcasm_ in the good doctor's voice, the man had moved away to the door, the easy grin back on his face as he addressed the bedridden man. Steve shifted slightly to the side to get out of the way as he exchanged a glance with Natasha. The significance of the look passed over Clint's head entirely as he focused solely on Bruce.

"They should be bringing you some food here shortly. You're stuck with formula for now, but you should be clear for solids soon. Got anything in mind?"

Clint looked back at him for a long moment before turning his gaze to his lap. He stared at the sheets as the minute ticked by, and the sudden anxious shuffling of the few teammates left around him drew him back to himself slightly as he glanced back up. He forced a grin onto his face, and a weary burst of a sigh escaped before he could stop it.

"Pizza. Thin crust. Cheese and sausage. And a beer."

Bruce's eyebrows were already crinkling, his mouth opening to berate the archer for thinking alcohol was suitable in his condition and how he should consider his health and yada yada yada, but Clint cut him off.

"I was promised a pizza and a beer at the end of this one, Bruce. I don't wanna disappoint."

There was some confusion that flitted across Bruce's face at that, but the man seemingly put two and two together close enough to understand the solemn words. He gave a slightly grudging nod before lifting a hand in an easy wave and slipping out the door to follow after Thor.

Clint looked back to the other two in the room. Steve was regarding him carefully, his face giving nothing away. His eyes however, held that kicked puppy glimmer they often did when he was holding back questions. Natasha looked downright stony.

Clint looked from Steve to Natasha and back again, the weight of something unsaid hanging oppressively over them as they exchanged another set of long, meaningful glances.

And then, Steve was sighing, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the edge of the bed as he planted his head in his hand.

"Clint, there isn't an easy way to go about this…"

"Didn't think there would be."

"…so just let us know if you need us to stop," Steve finished as if Clint hadn't interrupted.

The archer stared at him for a long moment before he spoke again, his voice low.

"Joker."

The word clearly baffled Steve, as he raised an eyebrow. But Clint wasn't finished.

"Jack. Ace."

"Clint, what—"

"Agents who died, Steve. Good agents. Because of HYDRA."

Steve's eyes cleared, and he gave Clint a sorrowful look that physically pained him to see. But he pressed on.

"It could have been me. Hell, it almost  _was_ me more times than not. But it wasn't."

Here, he glanced at Natasha. Her face was carefully blank, but he knew the look in her eye well enough to tell she was hanging on to every word. He looked back to Steve, his free fingers curling into the blankets as he finished with resolve.

"So believe me, I think I can handle some explanations at this point."

Steve gave a burst of an exhale when he was finished, and with a quick swipe of his hand through his hair, he settled back in the chair with a nod. His voice was soft when he spoke.

"Okay, then."

They locked eyes, and Steve began.

"What do you know about Doctor Arnim Zola?"

* * *

The day had passed quickly, the explanations and clarifications still spinning relentlessly in Clint's mind. He wasn't quite sure he had a handle on all of it yet, but he sure as hell wasn't about to admit that to Natasha and Steve.

They'd told him about their own mission. About the Winter Soldier. About HYDRA's corruption. About Steve getting his ass handed to him on a silver platter courtesy of his best friend. About Fury's death.

They'd gotten oddly suspicious around the topic. And when he said "they," he meant Steve.

The man could throw a shield like there was no tomorrow, but  _damn_ was he a horrible lier.

They'd left him to his thoughts sometime far later into the night, and he'd somehow found a restless sleep through the medication they'd funneled into him as his brain worked overtime.

The new day had broken early, and he'd been certain he'd rethought his entire  _life_ by the time he could move his leg without shooting pain.

They had a long way to go, but it appeared they were on solid ground at last.

The nurse had come in some time ago at his request, and she had blatantly refused to remove his oxygen clip. His lungs had taken a beating, she had said, and there was no way in hell she was letting him off the regime three days early.

So he'd sat staring rebelliously at the ceiling for the better part of the morning, left to his whirling thoughts as he waited for Natasha's promised visit in the afternoon.

He was surprised to find himself with a guest much earlier.

There was a tentative knock on the door, and Clint tilted his head to slide his gaze away from the ceiling to the offending noise.

Doctor Holden stood in the opening, his hand hovering where it had rapped against the wood. There was a thick swath of bandages plastered across his cheek that ran over his right ear and around the back of his head, but aside from that, there was no outward evidence of his trek through the river alongside Clint. The man was clad in loose fitting slacks and a deep maroon jumper. The presence of actual color on the man threw Clint off momentarily, and he found himself staring at it for a long moment before shaking himself out of the stupor. When he did, he saw a furtively uncertain expression held in careful check on Holden's face. The doctor raised an eyebrow and was speaking in that deliberate accent of his before Clint could untie his tongue from the morphine.

"Up to a bit of company?"

Now it was Clint's turn to raise a brow.

At a loss for words, Clint found himself gesturing loosely for the chair to his left. Holden took the invitation gratefully, stepping into the room in full with a nod.

And Clint saw the case grasped firmly in his other hand, the chain connected to the metal ringlet around his wrist bringing an inexplicable amount of relief to the archer.

Holden did not sit in the offered chair, however, choosing instead to stand beside the elevated bed as he glanced at the screens of data displayed beside the counter. There was something in his eyes that appeared to be disturbed, and Clint sat in silence, waiting for the man to speak first.

When he did, it was short and clipped.

"Maybe you're a little bit famous."

Clint gawked at him, an unbidden laugh forcing its way out from his lungs as the drugs amplified the hilarity of the unexpected statement. The laugh went on for a few long seconds, the sound seemingly bringing some sense of normalcy to Holden, as the doctor's pensive expression dimmed somewhat, his face morphing slowly back into it's neutrally observant state. Clint shook his head slowly with a final snort before responding.

"Shut up, man."

Holden gave him a look as he raised his eyebrows and mouthed a silent "ah," his free hand lifting in a placating gesture.

The wall mounted clock gave off a few loud ticks in the surprisingly companionable silence that overtook them, and Clint watched the doctor fidget with the bandage he had just noticed on the man's arm. When the second minute ticked by and the quiet began to grow heavy, he spoke again, his voice weary.

"Any idea of what happened to Lucas and the others?"

Holden inclined his head with a slight sniff as he gave a taught, flat-lined grin. "They evaded arrest for a few days. But the amount of camera footage they gathered from the bridge gave them a remarkable amount of material to go off of for a search. They cornered Lucas in North Carolina around three or four days ago. Doctor Petrosyan and the other man were arrested in a hotel in Alabama." He was quiet for a moment, a satisfied sigh preceding his next words. "And so, justice is delivered with the help of the grotesque fascination of the unwashed masses, no?"

Clint simply inclined his head, his eyes shutting as a weight he hadn't realized was still pressing down on him lifted.

They'd caught them.

And yet, something still pressed against the edges of his mind, and he cracked open an eye to look balefully at his visitor. Holden was picking at the chain attached to his wrist idly, his attention diverted to staring out the small window to Clint's right. And suddenly, Clint was speaking again, his voice carefully devoid of any form of accusation.

"No questions?"

Holden regarded him with that impassively blank stare of his.

"Of…?"

Clint waved the hand not bolted to the external fixator loosely towards his head. The doctor's eyes cleared considerably at the gesture as he understood just what it was Clint was insinuating, and he turned away with a puckered expression, disturbed. After a long minute, Clint was convinced he wouldn't be receiving an answer, but Holden turned back to face him shortly.

"I figure… that's your business."

There was definitely a disappointed gleam in Holden's eye, but the words were the warmest tone Clint had yet to hear from the Englishman. The archer exhaled deeply, the twinge of his ribs all but smothered in the heat of the painkillers. He gave a wry half smile to the doctor then as his head found it's way back to his propped pillow on its own accord.

"Damn right it is, doc. Nice to finally have you seein' things my way."

Holden snorted. "What I  _see_  is a drugged, intolerable lunatic of a man." He paused then, his eyes losing their short spark of jest as he sobered slightly and stepped back to sit in the chair besides the bed, the case coming to rest on his lap. The doctor settled stiffly, his free hand working its way to his back as he narrowed his eyes, taught lines betraying the aches he was denying. Looking back up to lock eyes with the archer again, he shook his head slightly, a somber expression taking its place on his face as his eyes crinkled behind those wire framed spectacles.

"What I see is the man whom I… and, frankly, millions of others… owe my life to."

Clint blinked owlishly at that as he gawked at the man beside him. It took a long moment for the archer to shake himself out of his stupor as he coughed slightly to fill the thick silence, and he attempted a casual shrug.

"Nah, doc, it's a debt free business here this time. None of that… 'owing life' stuff, yeah?"

Holden watched the awkward stammer of a reaction carefully, a slight furrow appearing in his brow as he leaned forward to plant his elbows on his knees and steeple his fingers before his face, the briefcase's chain rattling slightly at the movement. He quirked a brow as Clint finished, and with a slight tick of his head, he responded shortly.

"I don't quite think you get to decide that, Barton."

Clint looked away awkwardly, his eyes roving everywhere but the doctor's. "Yeah, well, if we're talking debts, then where does that leave you? You ended up in that river because of me—"

"—yes, which, truthfully, was the most terrifying decision of my life, might I add. How do you do these things on a regular basis?"

Holden's blunt interruption startled Clint, and he gaped openly at the man. "You  _did_ jump?" At the slightly baffled, delayed nod of confirmation he received, Clint laughed again, running a hand over his face as he spoke.

"Oh,  _man,_ I couldn't tell! I thought they changed their minds and just chucked you over or something!"

He sobered slightly as he locked eyes with the doctor, his hand finding its way to the back of his head as he scratched awkwardly. "And, uh, I know you probably went after the case and all, and I'm glad you got it back, but…"

He petered out, the words dying on his tongue as he realized he really didn't have them. When he glanced back up at Holden, he saw the man staring incredulously at him.

"You absolute  _moron."_

Clint gave the doctor a look at the disbelieving statement. "Yes, we've established that—"

"I went after  _you_!"

 _That_ came as a surprise.

Waving a hand slightly, Clint furrowed his brow as best he could against the bandages. "Woah, wait, back up here, doc. You and I both know that's not true, this sample means a hell of a lot more to you—"

"You almost died for it."

Clint stopped abruptly at the interruption, and he regarded Holden carefully as the doctor paused before continuing.

"You were readily  _willing_  to die for it. That means something in my books."

The second awkward silence in as many minutes hovered oppressively over them as Clint looked determinedly in any direction but Holden's.

"Yeah, well, it was nothing."

The doctor spluttered at that, and Clint glanced back to the man to see him leaning back with a positively flabbergasted expression.

"Wh-ho-n-  _excuse me?_ That was  _nothing_ to you? My God man, what counts as  _something?"_

Clint couldn't help the slightly drug induced snort of amusement that left him. The doctor was having none of that, however, and the man leaned forward again to look Clint in the eye, the furrow in his brow significantly deeper as he searched the archer's face. It was quiet for a moment as he apparently found what he was looking for, and clarity rushed over his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was soft.

"You really believe that, don't you?"

Clint rolled his head back on the pillow to stare at the ceiling as he exhaled deeply, his breath rushing out in an audible huff. "Look, doc, the things I deal with on an everyday basis-"

"You could have died! God's sake, man, you  _were_ dead for all accounts on the table if these records read right!" He gestured sharply to the screens.

Clint slid his eyes to their corners to regard the incredulous doctor aloofly.

"And?"

Holden raised his eyebrows, tilting his chin down to regard Clint from beneath them. His voice was thick with disbelief. " _And?_ That's what you have to say?  _And?_ There  _is_ no 'and', Barton, you just would have been  _dead!"_

Clint rolled his head back to the side to look at the doctor in full. It might have been the morphine that was prompting him, but really, he couldn't claim to be shocked at what was leaving his mouth. He was just… tired.

"Yeah?"

He shook his head slowly as the doctor looked on, and with another deep breath, he spoke on the exhale, his voice even and light.

"Let me know when that means something in my line of work, doc."

And boy, did  _that_ shut Holden up.

The doctor went still, his back rigid as his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. The unnerving stare pierced what felt like Clint's very soul, and the archer shifted slightly under the man's scrutiny. He was already kicking himself for speaking so aloofly.  _Why had he said that? He didn't really think that!_

_Did he?_

"The meaning of life."

Holden's voice startled Clint out of his reverie, and he regarded the doctor with a raised brow. His companion continued slowly, his tone even.

"You want the meaning of your life?"

It was all Clint could do not to flinch from the fiery heat emanating from his companion's sudden glare. He blinked uncertainly as Holden stood from the chair, his hands clasping the case behind his back as he stepped away to move to the small window encased in the wall and turn his back on the bedridden agent. Clint watched pensively as the man stared out into the sunlight, slowly shaking his head as he did so, the light glinting off of his glasses every few seconds. When the doctor spun again to finally address Clint, his next clipped delivery snapped Clint's brain into numbing emptiness.

"Life is for the living, Barton, and dead men don't need answers."

The hush that fell was almost too much for Clint to handle as the words ran through his brain. He stared back into the doctor's calculating eyes carefully, his own eyes flickering from one to the other as he processed just what had been said. When he finally broke eye contact, he turned his gaze out the window Holden had just turned away from.

"For the living, huh?"

There was a quiet hum of acknowledgment from the doctor as Clint shut his eyes.

An unbidden grin grew across his lips then _._

_For the living._

Well.

He could work with that.

"You sure you shouldn't have gone into the humanities, Holden?"

The words held a careful edge of snark in them, and yet Clint poured as much conviction into them as he could. When he opened his eyes to regard his companion, he could see he had come across clear as the doctor straightened slightly, his face morphing back into a vaguely disgruntled expression as he reclaimed his seat.

"Oh, please. I'll leave the morality to the philosophers, thank you very much."

Clint watched him carefully then, the seemingly aloof sentence not quite reaching the scientist's eyes. Suddenly, the words were slipping out of the archer's mouth before he could stop them.

"You called me an idiot."

"Well, yes."

"Why?"

"Because you're an idiot."

Clint waved his hand in frustration as the doctor suppressed an honest to goodness  _grin_. "Yeah, well, aside from that. Were you worried the sample would bust in the water or something?"

The archer's vision clouded at his own realization, and he furrowed his brow, too lost in thought to see the doctor raising his eyebrows in frustration.

"Oh…. Maybe I  _am_  an idiot, I didn't even think about that—"

"I called you an idiot because you  _jumped off of a bridge,_ moron."

Clint gave the doctor a long look, receiving an exasperated huff for his troubles. Holden shook his head, planting his chin in his palm as he leaned his elbow against the edge of the bed wearily, his other hand digging at his puffy eyes. The moment stretched on in silence, the two staring at each other with equally calculating gazes.

Holden was surprisingly the first to move.

The doctor scrubbed a hand over his face, much like he had done what already felt like centuries ago in the old Civic on the way to Etford. His glasses pushed up over his forehead and remained perched in the unruly tufts of blonde as he scrubbed further at his eyes with his knuckles, the clinking of the handcuff's long chain the only other noise in the room. A longwinded, weary sigh practically exploded from him as he sat back in the chair and regarded Clint again.

The grin was a surprise.

"You've… done well, agent Barton."

Clint stared incredulously at the man for a long minute before shaking himself out of his stupor and leaning further back into his pillows with a huff of a laugh.

"Done well."

Holden nodded resolutely as Clint flickered his gaze back to the man.

"If you think  _that_ was done well, I definitely don't want you reading my mission reports where things  _actually_  went well."

Holden actually laughed at that.

It was the first genuine laugh Clint had heard from the man.

When the sound petered out and Holden's grin was smothered by a clearly fake scowl, Clint gave a fleeting grin of his own as he nodded at the case.

"So you gonna tell me the name, or what?"

Holden turned his focus onto the case sitting on his lap, the chain making a small rustling noise as he shifted. He was silent for a long moment, his face puckered in concentration. When he looked up, he shrugged lightly.

"To be perfectly honest, I hadn't chosen a name."

Clint gaped at the man, a slow grin growing on his face. By the time the doctor managed to pull his expression into something more resemblant of his usual, indignant expression, the grin was a full blown smile. Before Holden could say a single word, Clint was talking.

"I knew it."

Holden sarcastically quirked a brow, waggling his head slightly with a roll of his eyes. Clint pressed on. "You couldn't even come up with a name for the thing? I mean, c'mon, where's your imagination—"

"Clearly not in the right place, you prat."

The insult held no conviction, and Clint simply grinned wider at the progressively exasperated expression growing on the doctor's face. "Alright, fine. So you didn't have a name for it then. You can't tell me you don't have at least a hint of an idea for one  _now._ "

Holden regarded him for a short moment before sitting back in his seat, the case resting on his knee carefully. "I might."

A beat passed before Clint waved a hand nonchalantly. "Feel like sharing?"

"No."

"See, now you're just being unoriginal."

"Am not."

"Most certainly are too. We've literally had this same conversation—"

"Alright, fine, fine, if it will shut you up," Holden relented, his hands raised in surrender. He sat forward slightly his hands clasping and coming to rest on top of the case as he locked eyes with his bedridden companion. When he spoke, there was an over-the-top flair of theatrics in his tone, his frame bobbing with the emphasis.

"Fantôme."

Clint frowned in pensive thought, his head slowly bobbing in a nod. "Eh. Could work. It definitely has a ring to it. Not sure what it has to  _do_ with it—"

"I'll be destroying it soon."

That stopped Clint in his tracks. He watched Holden in silence as the man rolled his shoulders, a slight, almost inaudible  _crack_ reaching Clint's ears.

"I'll be examining it for a month, tops. And then it's going into the incinerator. I'll not be touching upon this particular strain again if I can help it. But that won't stop me from making sure I know how to prevent it when it inevitably resurfaces."

The grin that pulled at Clint's lips wasn't entirely drug induced as the words filtered through his brain.

Huh.

Looked like the doc had some sense of morality after all.

A sharp hiss and a new influx of oxygen caught Clint by surprise then, and his eyes crossed involuntarily to glare at the plastic pinching his nose. Without fully thinking, he reached up to grasp the small device and unclipped it moodily.

No sooner had he done so than at least five alarm klaxons rang out from the machines beside him, startling Holden into jumping a good three feet out of his chair and crashing to the floor in an undignified heap.

The noise attracted a passing nurse, and when the woman hustled through the doorway to find the cause of the ruckus, she shot Holden a disapproving look before rushing to shut the alarms off. Clint glanced between the two sheepishly as Holden rubbed at his lower back in aggravation, his expression shifting into a more bleak version of his usual disgruntled look. When the nurse turned away from Clint's guilty grin and chose to instead chastise the man on the floor, Clint gave him a long, searching look, his eyebrows slowly crawling up his forehead as he listened with mounting disbelief.

"Doctor Holden, I recall explicitly telling you on  _multiple_ occasions that Mr. Barton's guest sign in already has a name on it for noon. He is not to have any more visitors for the remainder of the day; he needs rest, not company," she intoned, her voice a touch exasperated as she moved to replace the oxygen clip and flipped through his vitals shortly. She gave Clint a long, disapproving stare and a sharp admonishment of his own before turning to hustle back out the door, her next patient obviously already at the forefront of her mind. Holden gave her a withering look as she passed before turning back to face Clint, his eyes glimmering slightly in a mixture of disgruntled humor and general exasperation.

Clint half expected him to argue the matter, but he relented, standing slowly from the floor and brushing himself off with a sniff.

"Well. What a rude person."

Clint rolled his eyes slightly in good humor as the doctor continued, his hands moving to clasp the case behind his back again. "And just who is it you have on your list today, hm?"

The archer gave him a small grin. "A friend."

Holden stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head with a rueful sigh. "Fine, don't tell me. Enjoy your company. Just don't do that...  _thing_  again," he finished, gesturing to the oxygen clip somewhat anxiously. Clint gave him a mock salute, the languid movement ending in an undignified flop to the mattress.

Holden was moving to inch towards the door then, still rambling slightly. "Have you eaten? No, I suppose they haven't gotten you back to solid food as of yet, have they? When they do, ask them for the cinnamon roll. It's the only thing that doesn't taste like a sock dipped in the sauce of the day."

Clint stopped mid laugh at that, a distant thought suddenly ramming itself to the forefront of his mind. He froze in place, his eyes widening slightly as he pieced together a quick plan in his mind. Before Holden could move another inch, he spoke, effectively stopping him in his tracks.

"The homeless kids."

Holden raised a brow at that, his expression remaining casually blank.

"Finn. And Lucy. They need a place. Stark should be able to find a way to get them where they need to go. It's a small city, they shouldn't be hard to find with his tech."

He stared into the doctor's searching eyes, hoping the man understood what it was he was saying.

After a long moment of uncertainty, Holden blinked and straightened his stance slightly.

"Guess the list just got "find a suitable Mary Poppins" tacked on to the bottom."

At Clint's look, he held up a hand, his head shaking slightly.

"Relax. I'll... see that it gets done."

Suddenly, before Clint could so much as sigh in relief, Holden was stepping forward again and giving Clint a firm clasp on the shoulder with the hand not chained to the Fantôme sample.

He expected him to leave without a word then. They'd said enough for him.

Apparently not.

"Thank you, Barton. I… yes. Thank you."

And then he was pivoting to walk away.

Clint leaned back into the cushions as Holden strode towards the door, a slow grin spreading across the archer's face as the lethargy sank over him once again. When he spoke, he only hoped the words were as audible as he had meant for them to be.

"What happened to calling me Clint, doc?"

There was a pause in the shuffling of the doctor's feet then before the short, clipped response filled the room.

"I've no idea what you're talking about, Barton."

The door shut, and Clint tossed a mental coin to decide on allowing fate to intervene and have him quit holding on for the second time in his life.

The penny dropped.

And he let go.

_FIN_

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah. Wow. That chapter, if you would like to know, was 11,522 words long.
> 
> The book referenced here is "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom. It is one of my personal favorites, and it is ranked at number three on my list of books I believe everyone should read at some point in their lives. Give it a shot if you would like!
> 
> Thank you all again for reading! Remember to check back in for the epilogue!
> 
> Cheers! And if I don't update before the end of the year, Happy Holidays!
> 
> -R


	14. Epilogue: Weather is Great, Wish you Were Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. It has been FAR too long between updates, but life got absolutely crazy on this end and I fell out of the MCU funk. With that new Civil War trailer, however, I finally grit my teeth and knocked this out. No more revisions, no more messing with it: this story is now 100% complete. 
> 
> I'll have another note at the end, but for now, enjoy the last ever chapter of Drop and Cover!

* * *

 

**2 Months Later**

 

“Barton, I swear on every norse god and their mothers in existence, if you try to stand up one more time I’m going to spread butter on every single damn ramp I put in. Specifically for your sorry ass, might I add. And when you go flying, I’ll be right there. Laughing. Because you’re a jerk.”

The threat might not have been quite as intimidating a month or so earlier.

Given the circumstances, however, Clint was somewhat inclined to believe Tony.

The archer settled back moodily into the wheelchair, his pointed glare soaring completely over Tony’s head. The inventor was sprawled across the couch, his focus supposedly riveted on the flashing television mounted in the common area of the main living floor of Stark Tower. One arm was draped across the back of the oversized couch, the other stretched towards the sleek coffee table, hand fiddling mindlessly with a coaster. For all appearances, he had no clue Clint was even in the room with him. 

Clint huffed slightly as he propped his casted arm back onto the rest on the chair, his other hand reaching for the large wheel gracing the side of his mobile prison. He froze when Tony spoke again, his voice almost bored as it drifted lazily across the room.

“Same goes for if you don’t use the arm controls. C’mon, throw me a frikkin’ bone here, man, how old are you?” 

One day in closer proximity than he had ever had with this man and Clint was already convinced he had eyes on the back of his head.

They’d discharged him from the hospital only the day before on the grounds that he would watch himself and take it easy. Clearly, his new bundle of cohorts didn’t believe he’d follow these orders even remotely, as Steve was the one to stand beside him as he filled out the last of the paperwork required for his discharge. Clint would never truly admit it, but it was sort of nice to have an anchor aside from Natasha or… the rest of Strike Team Delta around to walk him out of a hospital. Or, in this case, wheel him out. And boy, was that a situation he hadn’t been in for a very, very long time. Clint had groggily fought the haze from the low dose of pain killers they had given him for the transport (“not entirely necessary, but we don’t want to take any risks, you see,” the smug nurse had told him as she’d injected the dose earlier that morning), and the entire process of disembarking from the building had contained an embarrassing amount of fanfare for his own liking. Steve had insisted on helping trundle him into the car Tony had waiting around the back of the hospital, the billionaire standing idly by with those annoyingly blank sunglasses of his doing little to hide the slight smirk on his face as Clint grumbled and glared his way through the whole process. It was only after he had been bustled into the car that he thought to question why it was Tony’s of all people’s, and when they took the turn away from his temporary apartment and towards Stark’s tower, the dread hit him like a ton of bricks to the gut. No amount of sputtered reasoning could convince the two men in the front seats that all he really wanted to do was go home and crash for about 5 years. 

Without supervision. 

Because he wasn’t a _child._

Now, he certainly didn’t think of himself as being particularly stupid, but he was getting the distinct feeling that neither had believed him when he’d promised he’d stay on the straight and narrow and let himself heal without interruption.

So, out the window went his plans for recuperating by hobbling straight out of his chair and crashing on the nearest horizontal surface until his head went fuzzy and he could pretend the last few months of his life hadn’t really existed. Whether he liked it or not, he was stuck under the vigilant eye of one highly intrusive billionaire and whoever so happened to be passing by the tower for the next few weeks, as Steve had informed him lightly from the front seat. (If he had felt the slightly drug induced glares drilling into the back of his head from the backseat, he chose to gracefully ignore them.)

So, here he found himself, parked unceremoniously in the middle of the living room of Stark Tower, silently steaming at his lack of options in his current position and staring pointedly at the back of Tony’s head. Half expecting the man to acknowledge the action, Clint narrowed his eyes in a glare, pouring all of the heated frustration he felt from being trapped in the chair into the single gesture. 

Tony didn’t acknowledge. 

Somewhat disappointed by the lack of response, Clint took in a deep gulp of breath and released it in a noisy (arguably over-the-top) whoosh, stretching his non-casted arm high over his head as he popped his spine back into place gingerly. When he spoke, his words were mostly a groan, and through narrowed eyes he saw Tony roll his head back on the couch to watch him stretch with a raised eyebrow. Had his head not been upside down from the angle, Clint might have taken the look seriously.

“Y’can’t _really_ be expecting me to stay in this thing, can you? I mean, seriously, if this is what day _two_ feels like I don’t even wanna know-“

“You’ll stay in the chair and like it, Spaulding. Butter threat still standing. You, on the other hand, won’t be.”  

Clint flopped back against the stiff seat as best as one could whilst already seated. 

“Ramps or not, man, I _will_ find a way out of this thing at some point. Y’can’t be in the same room as me forev-“ 

“Jarvis, keep a 24/7 monitor on Barton here for me for the duration of his stay, if you would please.”

_“With pleasure, sir.”_

“Now that’s just fighting dirty.”

Tony rolled his eyes with a shake of his head before turning his attention back onto the mounted screen. Clint took the motion as the cue it was and grudgingly fiddled with the controls on his chair, wheeling himself forward and past the couch. He felt rather than saw Tony’s eyes tracking him across the room as he passed slowly into the kitchen, his wheels only getting caught up on the corner of the counter once this time as opposed to the four times last night. (He didn’t remember it entirely, but he had been informed that he had gotten more somber than usual over that little fact.) 

Gliding to the industrial sized refrigerator (and honestly, why was that necessary? Tony didn’t exactly have a full tower to cook for…), Clint squinted at the controls on his armrest, prodding at several buttons until he found one that appeared to act as a break to lock the wheels in place. The last thing he wanted to do was roll _away_ from the potential of something like… nachos. “Potential” being a loose term, in this case.

After all, he’d have to be able to actually reach the cheese for there to _be_ “potential” nachos.

A long, slow glance to his right showed Tony seemingly absorbed in the television once again, so, with a slightly puckered expression, he opened the door to the fridge as casually as possible, blocking the view of the man on the couch. Once he was certain he was under cover, he grasped the armrest firmly, raising his casted arm in preparation to stand and reach for the drawer (the ridiculously high drawer, he noted with a glare) that contained the cheese.

His leg was steady as he levered himself out of the chair, and he grinned smugly as he went to put his casted leg onto the floor. 

Contact had barely been made before the boot slipped on the slick tile.

Heart leaping into his throat, Clint felt himself shifting dangerously fast, instinct taking over as he thrust his arm behind him to snatch the wheelchair and steady himself. He’d no sooner done so than Jarvis’ slightly strained voice piped into the room from overhead with a sharp “Sir-“ as his hand missed contact with the chair.

He didn’t hear the rest as he lost his battle with gravity and braced himself for impact. 

It didn’t come. 

Instead, a hand shot out from behind the open refrigerator door and planted itself firmly on his back, controlling his descent to a more manageable speed. He connected with the ground lightly with a soft _whoosh_ of an exhale as a solid grunt sounded next to him, and he clenched his hand over his heart to stop the adrenaline fueled hammering it had taken up. 

If there was anything that had stuck with him after his trip to Canada, it was the absolute, utter repulsion to the idea of falling.

A second passed, then 5, then 30, and finally he shot a sheepish glance to his right. 

Tony was facedown on the tile, his legs skewed behind him and his hand still firmly between Clint’s shoulder blades, cushioning his back from the kitchen floor. The fridge door was now shut from the apparent force of him colliding with it as he dove to catch Clint. 

Another few seconds passed in silence before Clint spoke. 

“I just, uh… wanted some nachos.”

Tony drove his forehead further into the floor with a groan before responding, his voice muffled from his face being pressed against the ground.  

“I’m investing in a squirt bottle.” 

Clint couldn’t help a breathy laugh at that, his shoulders shaking with it as Tony tilted his head back up to glare moodily at him. As the billionaire regained his footing and hauled Clint off the floor by supporting him under his good arm, he flicked the archer’s forehead lightly, bringing an abrupt end to the laughter. “Nuh-uh, you don’t get to laugh after pulling something like that. This? This isn’t funny. This is you being a moron.”

As he was practically dumped back into his wheelchair, Clint grinned wryly up at Tony, who crossed his arms and furrowed his brow disapprovingly in return. “Y’gotta admit, it’s… it’s a _little_ funny.”

“How is this even remotely funny?”

Clint darted his eyes between the living area and the kitchen before speaking out of the side of his mouth. “I mean… how far was that dive, man? You put Greg Louganis to _shame.”_

Tony stared for a long moment before tossing his hands in the air with a swear and miming a strangling motion in the air between him and Clint’s shit-eating grin. 

It was that precise moment that the elevator across the living room opened with a soft _ping_ and Bruce stepped into the room. 

The scientist had only taken a few steps before his eyes slowly glanced up from a stack of envelopes and sheafs of paper in his hands. Taking in the scene before him, he slowed to a stop, an eyebrow creeping up his forehead as he looked between Tony (who was still mid strangle) and Clint (who had switched into the closest expression he had to a deer in the headlights). As the three men stared at each other for a moment too long, he shook his head, his voice carrying lightly across the space as he closed the gap between them in a few long steps. 

“I’m not asking.”

“Good! Because if you did,” Clint piped up from his chair, voice full of fake enthusiasm, “I’d have to tell you about how you interrupted Tony’s plot to murder me when I was unawares so he wouldn’t have to watch me-”

“Ah-ha, yeah I’m sorry, but did you say ‘unawares’? Because that’s a lie.”

“Oh, is it?”

“You’d be 100% aware of me trying to kill you.”

“Woah, wait dude, _really?_ Why-“

“Because it’ll be due to _something_ ** _you_** _pulled, you prick.”_

Bruce shook his head again, a lopsided grin gracing his face as he tossed the stack of papers onto the counter. “Am I gonna have to break up another playground fight here? Because I really don’t want to have to break up another playground fight here.” 

Tony took an exaggerated step back from the wheelchair at that, hands held up in a placating gesture. Pivoting lightly, he paused to open a cabinet and rummage for the chips Clint would need to make nachos as a slight afterthought. The second his back was turned, Clint stuck his tongue out at him before wheeling closer to the counter Bruce was leaning against with a drily amused expression. 

To any outside observer, the whole exchange would have seemed odd.

But the whole team knew that Tony got snippy when he was worried. 

Clint spun to a slow stop beside Bruce at the counter, giving a belated nod of greeting to the man as Tony tossed the chips onto the counter beside the papers the scientist had brought in. “’S been a while, Bruce. Y’come to tell me to stop trying to escape too?”

Bruce quirked an eyebrow at that, mouth pursed slightly before he answered, the words drawn out slowly. “Sssssshould I?”

“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t _dream_ of trying to get out of this ch-“

Tony interrupted him from inside the fridge as a bag of shredded cheese soared through the air and smacked down on the counter beside the chips. “Don’t push it, Barton.”  

Clint smiled innocently as he turned his focus onto the papers strewn across the counter. He nodded to them as he addressed Bruce. “What’re these?" 

Glancing up from examining the packet of cheese, Bruce gave a distracted “hmm?” before responding. “Oh, just the mail. It was waiting at the front desk when I came in and Jarvis asked for me to bring it up.” 

A small hum of acknowledgement is all Clint gave him as he reached for the envelopes and began shuffling through them absentmindedly. There were plenty of official looking seals stamped on expensive paper stuffed with God knew what, but after a comfortable minute of silence between the three men as Tony threw together the nachos and Bruce scanned a letter addressed to the team as a whole, Clint’s spine went rigid. 

There was a letter.

For him. 

At the tower’s address. 

He stared at the envelope until his eyes crossed. Who would know he would be in the tower? And why would they send him a _letter_ of all things _?_ A quick glance to the upper left showed a P.O box for a return address, and he narrowed his eyes as he ran a finger lightly over the edges, searching for minute clues. Bruce’s voice snapped him out of his observation.

“Something wrong?”

Clint’s head snapped up, and he locked eyes briefly with Tony, who was watching him curiously from beside the oven. Turning to Bruce, he saw the same curiosity in Bruce’s eyes as the man looked between the envelope and his face, and Clint briefly wondered how long the other two men had been watching him fiddle with the envelope. Clearing his throat slightly, he held the envelope up.

“It’s, ah… it’s for me.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot upwards at that, and he eased himself away from the wall he’d been leaning against to join them at the counter as Bruce frowned slightly. The billionaire peered closely at the envelope in question before stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Huh. Got an admirer we should know about?”

When Clint didn’t answer, Tony exchanged a glance with Bruce before continuing. “Should I, uh, scan it? You’re not expecting death threats or anything are y-“

“No! God, no, it’s fine, Tony. I’m just, uh…” Clint trailed off as he flipped the envelope over again in his hand. Almost mindlessly, he tore the seal in one swift motion that caused both Bruce and Tony to jump slightly. Before either could say anything, he shuffled the neatly folded letter out of the envelope and unfolded the edge. Skimming the first line rapidly, Clint’s eyes unfocused for a short moment before he shook his head and looked up at his companions, who were watching him with expressions ranging from wary curiosity to outright suspicion. Clearing his throat again, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder and pointed to the elevator.

“It’s business. I’m gonna, uh, go read this in my room if that’s cool with you guys.”

And with that, he slapped a hand down on his chair controls and spun, making a beeline for the elevator as Bruce and Tony stared at each other in open bewilderment. He answered Jarvis’ “floor, sir?” with a sharp command to take him to his room, and as the doors closed behind him, he heard Tony shout a slightly miffed “I’m not saving all of these nachos if you’re not here to eat them!”

The ride to his floor and the short trip to his room were a blur, and when he found himself at his bed, he grit his teeth and hefted himself out of his chair and onto the lowered mattress. He took a moment to stare out his floor to ceiling window with a slowly growing grin, and after a deep breath, he looked down to read.

 

 

 

 

> Barton,
> 
>  
> 
> The Fantôme has lived up to it’s name. 
> 
>  
> 
> It is no more.
> 
>  
> 
> Time, sneaky bastard it is, has truly passed quickly. It has been two long months since we have last spoken, and for that I sincerely believe you will understand when I say I have been “busy.” But as these weeks of time and effort come to a close, I find it only necessary that I include you in the final product of our administrations. It is with the best of news and in the highest of spirit that I address you at this time. 
> 
>  
> 
> Upon thorough observation and genetic sampling, I believe I have found a base for a potential combatant to our little toxin. While it may not be a bonafide cure as of yet, I have high hopes for it, as it has progressed wonderfully throughout the timeline I have set for it. I plan to incubate it and further my research into its development through whatever resources I can find. It’s been… difficult, to say the least, without S.H.I.E.L.D backing, but I have my ways. I’ll see this through to the end. The Fantôme sample met its end in the incinerator only a short time ago. By the time you receive this letter, it will simply be a memory. A rather unpleasant memory, mind you, but I’d chalk this one up to learning experience, wouldn’t you?
> 
>  
> 
> I hope this news finds you in good mind. I’m sure you’ve spoken with who you need to speak to and done all you can to regain momentum on your side. I would apologize for not appearing for your rather unorthodox service for our fallen comrades, but I would be lying. Not for the apology, per say. But for being there. Leaving the hospital on your own to set up your own grave to pay respects would be commendable if you had brought along someone to watch your perimeter. There was a blind spot by the fountain. The gardenias you chose were lovely. 
> 
>  
> 
> Odd as it is to say, I also do hope your street scamps are taken care of. Last I heard of the whole business, your local billionaire had made short work of finding them and delivering them to rather distant relatives. Here’s hoping they don’t grow up wishing to be rife pains in the ass like you.
> 
>  
> 
> My price is still information. This time, it was on your whereabouts and current condition. It does no good in saying it, surely, but I’ll say it all the same: stay off that leg, you prat. 
> 
>  
> 
> Best of luck to you, Barton. I wish you good health and harmony.
> 
>  
> 
> Highest Regards,
> 
>  
> 
> Doctor Curtis Holden
> 
> PhD, M.D
> 
>  
> 
> P.S. Considering all I’ve said regarding the meaning of life, I find it only necessary to say: I may have been wrong.
> 
>  

Clint sat back on the bed with a long exhale as he processed what he had just read. The sample was gone. Really, actually gone. And if it ever came back, they’d be prepared.

Things would be ok. 

After a long moment of gazing unseeingly out the window with a slightly goofy grin on his face, Clint’s brow furrowed as he mentally reread the words before him. His eyes drifted back to the paper as he ran his finger over the oddly vague post-script, and he shook his head with a mutter.

“Couldn’t resist making it mysterious, huh doc?”

The last thing Clint had been expecting was a reply to that question.

And yet, a reply he got.

He froze as an amused voice piped up behind him from the direction of his door.

“Now who would possibly want _that_?” 

Years could have passed before Clint grinned wryly, the twist of his lip curling slowly at the familiar voice. He inclined his head ever so slightly, refusing to give the man behind him the satisfaction of a reaction to his overly dramatic reappearance. His thoughts turned briefly back onto Doctor Holden’s short, clipped response to his indirect questioning of life already so many months ago, and suddenly, he found the flaw in question with a realization that made him giddy.

It hadn’t _quite_ been accurate, it appeared. 

He addressed the newcomer languidly as he mulled the thought over, the words already forming in his mind.

“Business as usual, sir?”

_Life was for the living._

_And dead men…_

There was a short moment of silence and a thick snort before the owner of the voice stepped into the room, and Nick Fury clasped a hand to Clint’s shoulder, a twist of the corners of his lips all he offered in return as he spoke.

“You bet your ass, business as usual.”

Clint’s small grin grew exponentially at the gruff voice. 

Dead men?

Well.

The dead men in his life never truly gave up when it came to needing answers.

 

**_FIN_ **

* * *

 

 


End file.
